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PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY 
EDINBURGH AND LONDON 



THE 



Homes of Other Days 

OF 

DOMESTIC MANNERS AND SENTIMENTS 
IN ENGLAND 

FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN PERIOD TO MODERN TIMES 



THOMAS W,RIGHT, Esq. 

M.A., F.S.A., Hon. M.R.S.L., &c. 

Corresponding Member of the National Institute of France 
[Acadimie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres) 




NEW YORK . 
D. APPLETON & CO., BROADWAY 
LONDON : TRUBNER & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW 
1871 

All rights reserved 



A 



D A i \o 



g r l t rt 



GIFT 



M /tr^i^Ml^rJ- 



NOV -51945 
THE UB1UT IF GQNSRESS 



TO THE 

RIGHT HON. THE LORD LYTTON 

is 

AS A TESTIMONY 

OF THE VERY SINCERE RESPECT 

OF ITS AUTHOR. 



My dear Lord Lytton, 

Years not a few are now passed away 
since the excellent romance of " Harold the Last of the Saxon 
Kings" was first given to the world. I have a vivid remem- 
brance of the pleasure with which I read it. I was then compara- 
tively young, but earnest, in historical and archaeological research. 
I remember having been much struck with the description of 
the residence of the sorceress Hilda, — of the change from the 
Roman villa to the mansion of the Anglo-Saxon ; and I felt the 
greatness of the instinctive appreciation of historical truth which 
was displayed in it. In reading this, as well as other parts of 
your Lordship's work, I often thought what a useful book would 
be a complete and carefully compiled history of the domestic 
manners and economy of our forefathers, from the earliest period 
at which we can obtain any knowledge of it down to more 
recent times, — in fact, to our own modern home. This idea often 
recurred to my thoughts, until an opportunity was given me of 
carrying it into effect, though imperfectly, in a series of papers 
in the then popular '"'Art Journal." These afterwards, revised 
and considerably enlarged, were published in a volume in 1862, 
to which I gave the simple title of " The History of Domestic 
Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages." 
This book was received favourably, and is now, I believe, out 
of print ; and I have been induced to give to press a new 
edition, which I have so much altered in revision, and to which 
I have added so much, that it may be considered as a new work, 
and therefore I have considerably modified its title. 



\J 



DEDICATION. 



The object of the following pages, as I stated in the Preface 
to the first edition, was to supply what then appeared to be a 
want in our popular literature. We had Histories of England, 
and Histories of the Middle Ages, but none of them gave us a 
sufficient picture of the domestic manners and sentiments of our 
forefathers at different periods, — a knowledge of which, I need 
hardly insist, is necessary to enable us to appreciate rightly the 
motives with which people acted, and the spirit which guided 
them. The subject is a very wide one in regard to its mate- 
rials, and to treat it completely would require the close study 
of the whole mass of the mediaeval literature of Western Europe, 
edited or inedited, and of the whole mass of the monuments 
of mediaeval art. My aim was to bring together a sufficient 
number of plain facts, in a popular form, to enable the general 
reader to form a correct view of English manners and senti- 
ments in the Middle Ages, and I can venture to claim for my 
book at least the merit of being the result of original research ; 
it was not a compilation from modern writers who had written 
on the subject before. 

I need hardly say to your Lordship that there are at least 
two ways of arranging a work like this. I might have taken 
each particular division of the subject, one after the other, and 
traced it separately through the period of history which this 
volume embraces ; or the whole subject might be divided into 
historical periods, in each of which all the different phases of 
social history for that period are included. Each of these plans 
has its advantages and defects. In the first, the reader would 
perhaps obtain a clearer notion of the history of any particular 
division of the subject, as of the history of the table and of diet, 
or of games and amusements, or of costume, or the like ; but at 
the same time it would have required a certain effort of compa- 
rison and study to arrive at a clear view of the general question 
at a particular period. The second furnishes this general view, 
but entails a certain amount of what might almost be called 



DEDICATION. 



repetition. I chose the latter plan, because I thought that this 
repetition would be found to be only apparent, and it seemed 
to me the best arrangement for a popular book. The division 
of periods, too, is, on the whole, natural, and not arbitrary. 
During the Anglo-Saxon period, the social system, however deve- 
loped or modified from time to time, was strictly that of our own 
Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and was the undoubted groundwork 
of that which we now enjoy. The Norman Conquest brought 
in foreign social manners and sentiments totally different from 
those of the Anglo-Saxons, which for a time predominated, 
but became gradually incorporated with the Anglo - Saxon 
manners and spirit, until, towards the end of the twelfth cen- 
tury, they formed the English of the Middle Ages. The Anglo- 
Norman period, therefore, may be considered as an age of 
transition — we may perhaps describe it as that of the struggle 
between the spirit of Anglo-Saxon society and that of feudalism. 
The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we may look upon, in 
regard to society, as the English Middle Ages — the age of 
feudalism in its English form — and they therefore hold properly 
the largest space in this volume. The fifteenth century forms 
again a distinct period in the history of society — it was that 
of the decline and breaking up of feudalism, the close of the 
Middle Ages. At the Reformation, we come to a new transi- 
tion period — the transition from mediaeval to modern society. 
This, for several reasons, I regard rather as a conclusion, than 
as an integral part, of the history contained in the present 
volume, and I therefore give only a comparatively slight sketch 
of it, noticing some of its more prominent characteristics. The 
materials, at this late period, become so extensive, and so full 
of interest, that the history admits of several divisions, each of 
which is sufficient for an important book, and I thought it better 
not to enter upon them in the present volume. 

This volume I always consider as having been suggested to 
me by the perusal of " Harold," and it is therefore with a feeling 



DEDICATION. 



of great satisfaction that I now, in giving it to the world in a 

new form, and almost as a new book, take advantage of the 

permission to dedicate it to your Lordship. Nobody, I am 

sure, is so capable of appreciating whatever may be its merits 

or defects. 

I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, your Lordship's very 

faithful servant, 

THOMAS WRIGHT. 



14 Sydney Street, Bromptqn s 
London, S.W„ Sept, 1871, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Home, and the Origin of the Word.— The Migrations of Peoples, 
and the various Circumstances of their Settlements. — The Saxon 
Home and the Norman Manor, 

CHAPTER II. 

From Shrewsbury to Ludlow. — Stokesay Castle. — The Feudal Home. 
—Norton and Sutton. — The Anglo-Saxon Homes. — How the 
Saxons and Normans Lived at Home, 

CHAPTER III. 

Manners ot our Early Forefathers. — The Anglo-Saxons before their 
Conversion. — General Arrangements of a Saxon House, 

CHAPTER IV. 

In-Door Life among the Anglo-Saxons. — The Hall and its Hospitality. 
— The Saxon Meal. — Provisions and Cookery. — After-Dinner 
Occupations. — Drunken Brawls, ...... 

CHAPTER V. 

The Chamber and its Furniture. — Beds and Bedrooms. — Infancy and 
Childhood among the Anglo-Saxons. — Character and Manners of 
the Anglo-Saxon Ladies. — Their Cruelty to their Servants. — Their 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Amusements. — The Garden ; Love of the Anglo-Saxons for 
Flowers. — Anglo-Saxon Punishments. — Almsgiving, . . . 51 



CHAPTER VI. 

Out-of-Door Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. — Hunting and Hawk- 
ing. — Horses and Carriages. — Travelling. — Money-dealings, . 76 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Early Norman Period. — Luxuriousness of the Normans. — 
Advance in Domestic Architecture. — The Kitchen and the Hall. 
— Provisions and Cookery. — Bees. — The Dairy. — Meal-times and 
Divisions of the Day. — Furniture. — The Faldestol.— Chairs and 
other Seats, 93 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Norman Hall. — Social Sentiments under the Anglo-Normans. — 
Domestic Amusements. — Candles and Lanterns. — Furniture. — 
Beds. — Out-of-Door Recreations. — Hunting.— Archery. — Convivial 
Intercourse and Hospitality. — Travelling. — Punishments. — The 
Stocks. — A Norman School. — Education, 111 



CHAPTER IX. 

Domestic Schooling and Domestic Literature. — Latin taught to both 
Sexes in School. — Made the Instrument of Teaching Good Man- 
ners. — Grosseteste's Liber Urbanitatis, 133 



CHAPTER X. 
Early English Houses. — Their General Form and Distribution, . 141 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Old English Hall. — The Kitchen and its Circumstances. — The 

Dinner-Table. — Minstrelsy, 160 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

The Minstrel. — His Position under the Anglo-Saxons. — The Norman 
Trouvere, Menestrel, and Jougleur. — Their Condition. — Rutebeuf. 
—Different Musical Instruments in use among the Minstrels. — 
The Beverley Minstrels, 192 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Amusements after Dinner. — Gambling. — The Game of Chess : its 

History. — Dice. — Tables. — Draughts, . . . . . .210 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Domestic Amusements after Dinner. — The Chamber and its Furni- 
ture. — Pet Animals. — Occupations and Manners of the Ladies. — 
Supper. — Candles, Lamps, and Lanterns, 240 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Bed and its Furniture. — The Toilette; Bathing.— Chests and 
Coffers in the Chamber. — The Hutch. — Uses of Rings. — Com- 
position of the Family. — Freedom of Manners. — Social Senti- 
ments, and Domestic Relations, 268 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Occupations Out-of-Doors. — The Pleasure -Garden. — The Love of 
Flowers, and the Fashion of making Garlands. — Formalities of 
the Promenade. — Gardening in the Middle Ages, . . . 295 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Amusements. — Performing-Bears. — Hawking and Hunting. — Riding. 

— Carriages. — Travelling. — Inns and Taverns. — Hospitality, . 315 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Education.— Literary Men and Scribes.— Punishments : the Stocks ; 

the Gallows, 349 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

PAGE 

Old English Cookery. — History of " Gourmandise." — English. Cookery 
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. — Bills of Fare. — Great 
Feasts, 35^ 



CHAPTER XX. 

Slow Progress of Society in the Fifteenth Century. — Enlargement of 
the Houses. — The Hall and its Furniture. — Arrangement of the 
Table for Meals. — Absence of Cleanliness. — Manners at Table. — 
The Parlour, 370 



CHAPTER XXL 

In-Door Life and Conversation. — Pet Animals. — The Dance. — Rere- 
Suppers. — Illustrations from the " Nancy" Tapestry, 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Chamber and its Furniture and Uses. — Beds. — Hutches and 
Coffers.— The Toilette ; Mirrors, 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

State of Society. — The Female Character. — Greediness in Eating. — 
Character of the Mediaeval Servants. — Daily Occupations in the 
Household : Spinning and Weaving ; Painting. — The Garden 
and its Uses. — Games Out-of-Doors; Hawking, &c. — Travelling, 
and more frequent use of Carriages. — Taverns; Frequented by 
Women. — Education and Literary Occupations ; Spectacles, . 423 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Changes in English Domestic Manners during the Period between 
the Reformation and the Commonwealth. — The Country Gentle- 
man's House. — Its Hall. — The Fireplace and Fire. — Utensils. — 
Cookery. — Usual Hours for Meals. — Breakfast. — Dinner, and 
its Forms and Customs. — The Banquet. — Custom of Drinking 
Healths, 447 



CONTENTS, xv 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PAGE 

Household Furniture. — The Parlour. — The Chamber, . . . 475 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Occupations of the Ladies. — Games and Enjoyments. — Roughness of 
English Sports at this Period. — The Hothouses, or Baths. — The 
Ordinaries. — Domestic Pets. — Treatment of Children. — Methods 
of Locomotion. — Conclusion, 



CHAPTER I. 

Home, and the Origin of the Word. — The Migrations of Peoples, and the 
various Circumstances of their Settlements. — The Saxon Home and 
the Norman Manor. 

WHEN God first gave peoples to this earth, He perhaps endowed 
them with qualities which easily fitted them to the character of 
the spots on which they were located, and with them they would gain the 
two tendencies for spreading and wandering, or for remaining stationary, 
or nearly stationary. When we become acquainted with them, we find 
them in groups, each more or less numerous, and removed to greater or 
less distances from each other. As we reach a later period, we may 
trace more or less their wanderings and their settlements, and their 
subsequent relations to each other. It is a knowledge which has 
eventually formed the science of history. We become acquainted 
almost with our Teutonic forefathers when they were in the midst of 
their primitive wanderings, and some of them making their way to this 
island. As might be supposed, the great rallying-point among these 
groups was family relationship, kindred by blood. The children of a 
family, in those early times, were considered as belonging absolutely to 
the father, and, as a part of the whole, they had a certain claim upon 
whatever the family possessed, in fact, upon its protection and support. 
When the male children of a family had reached a certain age, they 
began to think of separating from their father's family, and of seeking 
to provide for themselves independently and raise each a family of his 
own. For this purpose, he went and obtained a plot of ground, by 
purchase or by grant, or by other arrangement; or (in the earlier 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



times) he united with a number of enterprising young men who were in 
the same position as himself, and they went on an expedition to take 
the land they wanted from their neighbours, or in some distant country 
where they determined to settle. It was thus that the Teutons estab- 
lished themselves in our islands. Tradition has preserved some re- 
membrance of the form and manner of the proceedings, when, for 
instance, a young Teuton, or Scandinavian, who was distinguished 
among his acquaintances for his bold warlike qualities, caused his design 
to be proclaimed in public and invited companions to join him, and 
sons of other families, moved by the same spirit, soon responded to the 
call. The first proposer of the expedition, who was no doubt a man 
fitted for the undertaking, became usually the leader, and he was after- 
wards the chieftain of the new state they founded. Our own early 
forefathers, like most other primitive peoples, were very superstitious, 
and loved to reckon chance or magic on their side ; and it is said that 
when the adventurous party were on their way, sailing or rowing over 
the sea, they took a log of timber, hewn from one of their sacred 
trees, performed a magical incantation over it, and then threw it into 
the sea, and watched it on its way to land. Wherever this object touched 
the shore, they landed to take possession, and resistance was defeated 
by the sword and the spear, if the number of the confederates were 
sufficient to be considered a little army. The land thus taken was 
divided into so many portions, and these were shared by throwing lots 
among all the leaders, and thus became so many family estates in the 
new settlement, or, as they were called in after times, manors. This 
latter word, which of course is derived from the Latin verb maneo, and 
belongs to the feudal period, when the language usually talked was 
French, meant the place where the lord of the land dwelt, the house of 
the head of the family. 

' The name given to this family dwelling was ham, a syllable which 
is well known to us all as occurring so frequently in our old local names 
in England. It seems to have belonged especially to the house of the 
head of a family, and is usually found combined with the patronymic of 
the family, or the names of the sons, when, at the original Anglo-Saxon 
settlement, the father, that is, the possessor, with a feeling which we 
can sufficiently well understand, gave to the house, or ham, not exactly 



THE SAXON HOME. 



his own name, but the patronymic. Thus, we may take an example 
in the modern town of Birmingham, which no doubt tells us who was 
the first Teutonic conqueror of the land on which it stands, and 
the site of whose family residence it occupies. The name of this 
lord or chieftain no doubt was Beorm ; but his ham was not known 
simply as Beormes-ham, or, as it would now have been, Birmsham. 
The Anglo-Saxons, like the other branches of the Teutonic race, had 
their patronymic form, which was also well known in Greek. In 
the latter, the son of Alceus was an Alcides, and the son of Peleus a 
Pelides.® It was the same in Anglo-Saxon; but our Teutonic patro- 
nymic was the termination of the name in ing. The son of King Alfred 
was an Alfreding, and the son of Beorm was a Beorming ; so Beorm did 
not call his house (being the head seat of the family) Beorm's ham, but 
he called it the house of Beorm's sons and descendants, — Beorminga- 
ham, the house of the Beormings. Beorminga is the Anglo-Saxon 
genitive case plural of the word. The intention was to impress people 
with the fact that this was the original house — the nest, if we like, of no 
doubt an early family of distinction in this part of our island. It is 
curious how, in these early times of the European races, people sought 
to identify themselves with the land on which they lived. 

The word ham does not appear to describe any particular form or 
size of building, and it was apparently given sometimes to a group 
of buildings, when it constituted a family residence, and almost to a 
village. Hamlet is a derivative, perhaps a diminutive, from it — a little 
ham. When the Anglo-Saxon had obtained his allotment of land, and 
had fixed upon the site of his ham, he surrounded the space destined 
for it with what he called a wall, but which we call a mound, as it was 
always made of earth, and was usually accompanied with a ditch. 
The Anglo-Saxons, during their primitive period, did not indulge in — 
they rather disliked and feared — masonry. This was so much the case, 
that the only Anglo-Saxon words for building are timbrian, atimbrian, 
getimbrian, — to make of timber. Within this wall — for though a mere 
earthwork, the Anglo-Saxons called it a wall — was the yard (geard), 
which, in feudal times, would be called the court of the mansion, and in 
modern times has been called, by a rather singular combination, a court- 
yard. Within this yard, or court, accordingly as we take the Saxon or 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Norman names, stood the buildings which constituted the ham, con- 
sisting, first and principally, of a large building which they called their 
heal, and which we, with the modified form of this word, call a hall. 
It was the place in which the family lived, and on the floor and benches 
of which many of them slept at night. For others, and forthe ladies 
especially, little rooms were built -outside, often standing apart from 
any other building; and the Anglo-Saxons called this room a bur, 
which, in the change of the language, answers to our bower. These were 
sleeping or private rooms, and were usually occupied by the ladies ; 
and the phrase of the ladies in their bower, or, as it was more com- 
monly known in our language, in which bridde or bride meant a lady, 
briddes in bower, occurs constantly from Saxon times to the fifteenth 
century. 

The ham, or head house of the family, held a place which of course 
appealed to all the tender feelings of the members of the family, and 
in a manner bound them all together. This particular sentiment is 
the one which has descended with the name to modern times. The 
word has come to us in a somewhat modified form. The Anglo-Saxon 
pronunciation of the a appears to have been very broad, and to have 
differed very little from that of the o, for they are often interchanged 
for each other in the pronunciation of the dialects, and in the 
writing of the manuscripts. One of ourselves is as often called a mon 
as a man ; and thus, in the gradual formation of modern English from 
Anglo-Saxon, the old Saxon ham has been moulded down into our 
modern word home. The true home of the children of the family was 
the house of their father. It would not be easy to say how much of 
noble sentiment is wrapped up in this one word. 

The home of the Anglo-Saxon seems to have preserved most of its 
original characteristics during the Anglo-Saxon period. First, there was 
the encircled yard or court, and the great hall stood in the middle, 
and around it were the bowers; but when the Norman influence pene- 
trated into our island, it substituted the Norman chamber for the Anglo- 
Saxon bur or bower, and the latter is no longer heard except in 
the popular minstrelsy. 

New times came in, and feudalism rose into existence. The feudal 
house, whether a great castle or a more private manor-house, required 



THE NORMAN HOME. 5 



to be strongly guarded, and its inclosure was usually of walls and 
towers of massive stone. For the old ham was only liable (or seldom, 
otherwise) to sudden surprise, while the feudal castle, or even the 
feudal manor-house, existed in a state of continual warfare, and had 
often to sustain long sieges. 

It is worth a remark, that we still retain a traditionary representative 
of the old Saxon manor, or ham, of course very much degraded, in our 
ordinary cottage, or house in the country. The cottage represents the 
Saxon hall, and its iurhs, or chambers. The garden is the geard, or 
yard, and was formerly inclosed by a mound of earth and a ditch. 
On the mound is usually planted a hedge or palings. As the Anglo- 
Saxon buildings within the inclosure were all of wood, they have of 
course long disappeared, and all that now remains is an earthwork, or, 
as it is popularly called, a camp. I have often remarked the modern 
farmers' or peasants' houses, especially on the coast of Cheshire, with 
the surrounding mound of earth and its hedge or palings; and I have 
thought, if the house and everything but the earthworks of the outer 
fence had entirely disappeared, antiquaries in general would say, that 
it is a British or very ancient camp ; and I believe that a great number 
of the early remains so often talked of as early camps are nothing but 
the remains of Anglo-Saxon homes. 

We have remains, also, and very noble remains, of the homes of the 
following ages. How many noble examples remain of the homes of 
the feudal period, the manoir (manor), or family residence of the feudal 
gentleman ! And there is one, peculiarly choice and perfect in its 
characteristics, which I should wish to introduce to my readers. 



CHAPTER II. 

From Shrewsbury to Ludlow. — Siokesay Castle. — The Feudal Home. — 
Norton and Sutton. — The Anglo-Saxon Homes. — How the Saxons 
and Normans Lived at Ho?ne. 

N almost every part of our island we find remains of the domestic 
habitations of its peoples belonging to remote periods of history ; 
and as we pass by them, or still more, when we visit them, we naturally 
feel the desire to know something of the manner in which their 
inhabitants in those remote ages lived in them and enjoyed themselves. 
It will be well, therefore, to make a little excursion, and look at some 
of these remains ourselves. 

There are few parts of Britain which present natural features so 
strikingly beautiful and so varied as the counties which form the Bor- 
ders, or, as they were called in ancient times, the Marches of Wales ; 
and, among these, perhaps we might venture to give the palm to the 
beautiful county of Shropshire. And what can surpass the charming hills 
and valleys which cover the district between Shrewsbury and Ludlow, — 
the two fair and strong towns which especially commanded the Welsh 
frontiers ? The Romans early appreciated fully the importance of this 
line of country in a military and in a mercantile point of view, and they 
carried through it a series of roads, — such fine roads the Romans knew 
how to make ! — and built near to them a number of important towns. 
From these have arisen some of the finest towns and some of the prin- 
cipal roads of the modern border. There are few lines of railway which 
present so many beauties as that from Shrewsbury to Ludlow, and 
onward to Hereford. 

On leaving Shrewsbury, we have a fine open country, with distant 



SHREWSBURY TO LUDLOW. 



and interesting views on either side. To the left our attention is first 
attracted by the bold, massive form of the Wrekin, the most cele- 
brated of Shropshire hills, which appears in early times to have been 
regarded with a degree of superstitious reverence. Its summit is 
deeply intrenched, perhaps by the Romans, or more probably by 
their predecessors ; while the former raised, at a little distance on 
the plain at its foot, the large city of Uriconium, the site of which 
is now called Wroxeter, a name which some suppose to have been 
formed from that of the neighbouring mountain. Be this as it may, 
the people of the neighbouring country, apparently to a considerable 
. distance, were called by the Anglo-Saxons Wrecinsetas, or the inhabi- 
tants of the Wrekin country ; and we have reason for believing, that if 
its name had been given to the county before the appointment of the 
Norman Roger to the earldom, it would have been called, instead of 
Shropshire, Wrekinset, like Dorset and Somerset. There are, I believe, 
some reasons for saying that this mountain was considered by the 
people of our side of the world as marking the central point of the sur- 
face of the globe ; and the local popular toast, down to the present day, 
continues to be, " To all friends round the Wrekin," meaning, of course, 
to all friends in the world. 

A little further, and we see in the distance, to the south of the Wre- 
kin, the Wenlock mountains, and these are followed westward in the 
view by a line of other lofty hills, ending in Lawley, and the famous Caer 
Caradoc, which is supposed to preserve to us the name of Caractacus. 

These two latter we are now rapidly approaching. Caer Caradoc, 
also with an intrenched summit, stands like a mighty sentinel at the 
entrance to a charming valley, formed by two parallel rows of hills, 
some of them of considerable elevation. Those on the right hand, as 
we descend the valley, are known as the Longmynds, also a name 
celebrated in Shropshire. About half way down the valley, also to the 
right, at the foot of the Longmynds, we find a pretty country town, 
with a railway station. Down this valley the Roman had run his road ; 
and, with the changes which the best of roads will undergo in a good 
part of two thousand years, this still accompanies the rail on its eastern 
side. The Romans called a paved road a stratum; all these roads 
were well paved, and the Saxons, who had no such roads of their own, 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



seized upon the word, and turned it into street, or, as we now write the 
word, street. This is the origin of the word street, which is now pre- 
served only in the roads in a town. 

The Saxons called a small inclosed space, which was strongly fenced, 
and in which dwelt, perhaps, a family of wealth and position, with other 
families dependent upon it, forming sometimes a village, a tun. It is 
the origin of our modern word town, and of the termination of so many 
modern local words ending in ton, as Weston, the west tun; Sutton, the 
south tun ; Langton, the long tun, and the like. To those especially 
who had anything to do with traffic, or who might derive advantage 
from the movement which, of course, was always going on in a public 
road, the side of one of the streets was of course a very desirable 
place for a settlement, and such a settlement gained the name of street- 
tun. This is the origin of the numerous places now called Stretton. 
This was the name given to the little town I have just mentioned, as 
standing on the side of the Roman road running along the valley 
through which we are now passing by a railway. In those old times 
there were probably other tuns along the same line ; but this seems to 
have been the only one of sufficient importance to have a church, 
and obtained the distinctive, name, which it has preserved, of Church 
Stretton. The valley is the Church Stretton valley. 

We arrive at the southern end of it, and it opens into another tract 
of country, rather less open than that to the north. One of the first 
objects which attracts our attention is a fine early half-castellated build- 
ing, to which the people of early ages, after the Anglo-Saxon settle- 
ments, had given the name of Stoke. This is a frequent name of 
places derived from the Anglo-Saxon period, and is understood to mean 
simply a place, but it is often distinguished by the addition of the name 
of the family which at some period had possessed the lordship. During 
a great part of the Norman period, the twelfth and the thirteenth cen- 
turies, this Stoke belonged to the great family of the Lacys, and for 
a while was held under them by the family of Say. From this family 
it took the name of Stokesay, which it has preserved to the present 
day ; for it is still known by the name of Stokesay. Soon after the 
middle of the thirteenth century, the lordship of Stokesay had passed 
from the Says and the Lacys to a family of distinction in this part 



STOKES AY CASTLE. 



of the land, called, from the ancient town from which they came, De 
Ludlow. In the year 1290, one of the best-known members of this 
family, Laurence de Ludlow, obtained a licence from the king to em- 
battle his mansion at Stokesay ; and this, I doubt not, marks the date 
of the building which still exists, though in its ruin, for it is in accord- 
ance with the architecture of the remains. To embattle meant to fur- 
nish the walls with the protection afforded by crowning the walls with 
battlements, — very necessary in those feudal times, and to erect which, 
without the king's licence, was looked upon almost as an act of rebellion. 

The name of castle, by which this interesting ruin is generally known, 
is altogether erroneous. Every one acquainted with the history of mili- 
tary architecture, knows that this was not a castle or military fortress, 
and that it had nothing to do, properly speaking, with military pur- 
poses. It was simply the manor-house, the domestic residence of one 
of the powerful landed gentry of the feudal period, the home of the 
family ; and I may add, it is one of the earliest and finest examples 
of the old feudal manor-house we now possess. We have many of a 
somewhat later period. But Stokesay is in many respects an interesting 
building, and well worthy of study, as illustrative of the character of the 
English gentleman's home in the thirteenth century. 

In the state of society which characterised those early times, a 
gentleman at home was obliged to be always on his guard. Personal 
and family enemies were always on the watch to attack him, and he 
was obliged to have his manor-house inclosed by strong walls, and to 
keep a watchman all night on his battlements to prevent surprise. 
Enemies of his own class were ready to join together to attack him; 
and likewise in those times there was a large population, especially 
in the parts of the country farther from the metropolis, which lived 
out of the law,, and contrary to it. They preyed upon feudal society, 
and have their representatives, in the later ballads, in the followers of 
Robin Hood. These, also, would collect in force, and suddenly 
attack the feudal gentleman's house in hope of plunder. In anticipa- 
tion of such attacks, the house must be made strong enough to be able 
to hold against a siege, until the gentleman's friends could be brought 
together from the surrounding country to his assistance; and therefore 
a tower formed part of the building, on which a fire or beacon might 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



be lit, and a sentinel was kept walking along the battlements all 
night, to give the alarm on the approach of danger. 

All this is seen at Stokesay. It covers a space of about two acres of 
ground. Outwardly it presents a mass of building, inclosing a court of 
not very great magnitude. This court is only open on the one side, 
where a rather low wall now separates it from the churchyard, but the 
site of this wall also was formerly occupied by buildings. The principal 
buildings form now the west side of this court, and are seen to the right 




View of Stokesay Caslle from Stokesay Churchyard. 



in the accompanying view of the court from the churchyard. The central 
mass of these buildings consists of the great baronial hall, in which passed 
much of the life of the feudal gentleman and his followers. Its extent is 
marked by the four massive and lofty windows which admitted light into it. 
This was the most important portion of the old baronial home. It 
was here that the family lived, eat and drank, and took most of its 
social enjoyments; and here too a good number of the household 
slept. Beyond it, in this picture of Stokesay, is the piece of wall with 
smaller windows, and a door over the kitchen and butteries, just as in 
the old halls of our colleges in the universities. Beyond these, and 
adjoining to the mass of the buildings of the hall, rises the great tower, 
outwardly, and especially at a distance, the most conspicuous and 
striking part of the building. A fire or beacon from its summit would 



NORTON. 



have been distinctly visible at nine miles distant, in the great border 
fortress of Ludlow Castle, which would, no doubt, have lost little time 
in sending out its troops to the rescue. If we continue our route from 
Stokesay, we shall soon arrive at Ludlow itself. 

At this time, as we find by comparing it with that of the earlier dwellings 
of the race, the gentry of our forefathers had changed their taste for the 
site of their home. In primitive ages they sought elevated positions 
for their resting-places ; but now, perhaps having modified their taste 
by an acquaintance with the ecclesiastics, they chose the sides or 
bottom of a pleasant valley, bounded by gentle hills, and clothed with 
green woods. This is much the character of the position of Stokesay. 
It stands on comparatively low ground. We understand, of course, 
that the great importance of its site was, that it formed the key to the 
Stretton valley, which had commanded from before Roman times the 
communication north and south along this border. The country lies 
open to the south in' the direction of Ludlow, the castle of which, as 
just stated, is visible from the summit of the tower. On the west rises 
a little line of low hills, richly wooded, which are known on this 
account as the Stoke Woods. On the other side, towards the east, 
Stokesay stands at the foot of a rather steeper hill, which, rising grad- 
ually from Onibury to the south, reaches its greatest height just over 
Stokesay, where its summit, surrounded by intrenchments, is known 
by the name of Norton Camp. 

The name of camp is as little applicable to the ancient site at 
Norton, as that of castle is to the manor-house at Stokesay. A careful 
examination of the remains by any one well acquainted with the 
subject, will, as I have said, lead to the conclusion that these in- 
trenchments, as we call them, these walls, as an Anglo-Saxon would 
call them — for he built his walls of earth — once inclosed the residence 
of an Anglo-Saxon chieftain, whose rule probably extended over the 
country spread around ; perhaps his family was that of one of the first 
of the Teutonic conquerors of this part of our island. As already 
stated, the- Anglo-Saxons were no great builders, in the sense of build- 
ing as we now use the word. They laid out a court, or yard, in the 
middle of which they raised their great hall, of timber, which therefore 
was perishable, and thus we have seldom any trace of it remaining. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



The hall was the great resort of the lord and his family, and of his 
followers during the day, and many of them slept in it at night. In 
the court, against the wall, or around it, were raised, no doubt of 
wood also, huts or cabins, also for sleeping, but principally for the 
females of the family. These were the burs, or chambers. The 
court, or yard, was surrounded by a strong series of intrenchments, 
or earthen mounds, to protect it from attack, and especially from 
surprise. This continuous mound was usually crowned by a hedge, or 
by a line of wooden palings. These, of course, have long disappeared, 
as well as the domestic buildings of wood, and nothing now remains 
but the earthworks, which people take for camps. 

I have already explained the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon tun. Norton 
must have been a large and important residence, not only from its extent, 
but from its commanding position, and from its name ; it was evidently 
a much more important establishment than the ordinary class of tuns ; 
and its name of the North Tun points clearly to some other place of 
the same character from which it was thus distinguished. This, there 
can be little doubt, is to be looked for in Sutton, near Hereford, where 
the imposing remains of a great Anglo-Saxon mansion of a similar im- 
portance are known as Sutton Walls. This was, no doubt, the South 
Tun. They have been, perhaps, the family residences of the two 
greatest chieftains on our border during the early Anglo-Saxon period. 
We cannot even guess who was the occupant of Norton, but Sutton is 
believed to have been a residence of the great King Offa, and is sup- 
posed to have been the scene of the murder of the sainted King Ethel- 
bert of East Anglia, the patron saint of Hereford Cathedral. 

Thus we find in close proximity the imposing remains of two in- 
teresting monuments of history; a great chieftain's dwelling of the 
earlier period of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and close to it a manor- 
house of the later feudal period ; and as we pass them in our progress, 
or halt awhile to examine them more closely, we must all feel the 
desire to know something more of the ancient peoples who resided in 
these mansions, and the manner in which they lived in them. It is 
the object of the present work to supply, as far as lies in my power, the 
information thus required. 



CHAPTER III. 

Maimers of our Early Forefathers. — The Anglo-Saxons before their Con- 
version. — General Ari'angements of a Saxon House. 

THE desire for information on these topics has indeed been felt 
widely, and much has been written at different times on the 
costume and some other circumstances connected with the condition of 
our forefathers in past times, but no one has undertaken, with much 
success, to treat generally of the domestic manners of the Middle Ages. 
The history of domestic manners, indeed, is a subject the materials of 
which are exceedingly varied, widely scattered, and not easily brought 
together ; they, of course, vary in character with the periods to which 
they relate, and at certain periods are much rarer than at others. But 
the interest of the subject must be felt by every one who appreciates 
art ; for what avails our knowledge even of costume unless we know 
the manners, the mode of living, the houses, the furniture, the utensils, 
of those whom we have learnt how to clothe ? and without this know- 
ledge, history itself can be but imperfectly understood. 

In England, as in most other countries of Western Europe at the 
period of the Middle Ages, when we first become intimately acquainted 
with them, the manners and customs of their inhabitants were a mixture 
of those of the barbarian settlers themselves, and of those which they 
found among the conquered Romans ; the latter prevailing to a greater 
or less extent, according to the peculiar circumstances of the country. 
This was certainly the case in England among our Saxon forefathers ; 
and it becomes a matter of interest to ascertain what were really the 



i 4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



types which belonged to the Saxon race, and to distinguish them from 
those which they derived from the Roman inhabitants of our island. 

We have only one record of the manners of the Saxons before they 
settled in Britain, and that is neither perfect, nor altogether unaltered — 
it is the romance of " Beowulf," a poem in pure Anglo-Saxon, which con- 
tains internal marks of having been composed before the people who 
spoke that language had quitted their settlements on the Continent. 
Yet we can hardly peruse it without suspecting that some of its por- 
traitures are descriptive rather of what was seen in England than of what 
existed in the North of Germany. Thus we might almost imagine that 
the " street variegated with stones " {street woes stdn-fdh), along which 
the hero Beowulf and his followers proceeded from the shore to the 
royal residence of Hrothgar, was a picture of a Roman road as found 
in Britain. 

It came into the mind of Hrothgar, we are told, that he would cause 
to be built a house, " a great mead-hall," which was to be his chief 
palace, or metropolis. The hall-gate, we are informed, rose aloft, " high 
and curved with pinnacles " (heah and hom-gedp). It is elsewhere 
described as a "lofty house;" the hall was high; it was "fast within and 
without, with iron bonds, forged cunningly." It appears that there were 
steps to it, and the roof is described as being variegated with gold. The 
walls were covered with tapestry {web after waguni), which also was 
" variegated with gold," and presented to the view " many a wondrous 
sight to every one that looketh upon such." The walls appear to have 
been of wood ; we are repeatedly told that the roof was carved and 
lofty. The floor is described as being variegated (probably a tesselated 
pavement); and the seats were benches arranged round it, with the 
exception of Hrothgar's chair or throne. In the vicinity of the hall 
stood the chambers or bowers, in which there were beds [bed after 
Minim). 

These few epithets and allusions, scattered through the poem, give us 
a tolerable notion of what the house of a Saxon chieftain must have been 
in the country from whence our ancestors came, as well as afterwards in 
that where they finally settled. The romantic story is taken up more 
with imaginary combats with monsters than with domestic scenes, but it 
contains a few incidents of private life. The hall of King Hrothgar was 



THE ROMANCE OF "BEOWULF." 15 

visited by a monster named Grendel, who came at night to prey upon its 
inhabitants ; and it was Beowulf's mission to free them from this noc- 
turnal scourge. By direction of the primeval coastguards, he and his 
men proceeded by the " street" already mentioned to the hall of Hroth- 
gar, at the entrance to which they laid aside their armour and left their 
weapons. Beowulf found the chief and his followers drinking their ale 
and mead, and made known the object of his journey. " Then," says 
the poem, " there was for the sons of the Geats (Beowulf and his 
followers), altogether, a bench cleared in the beer-hall ; there the bold 
of spirit, free from quarrel, went to sit; the thane observed his office, he 
that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup ; he poured the bright sweet 
liquor ; meanwhile the poet sang serene in Heorot (the name of Hroth- 
gar's palace), there was joy of heroes." Thus the company passed their 
time, listening to the bard, boasting of their exploits, and telling their 
stories, until Wealtheow, Hrothgar's queen, entered and " greeted the 
men in the hall." She now served the liquor, offering the cup first to 
her husband, and then to the rest of the guests, after which she seated 
herself by Hrothgar, and the festivities continued till it was time to retire 
to bed. Beowulf and his followers were left to sleep in the hall — " the 
wine-hall, the treasure-house of men, variegated with vessels " (fcettum 
fdhne), Grendel came in the night, and after a dreadful combat received 
his death-wound from Beowulf. The noise in the hall was great; "a 
fearful terror fell on the North Danes, on each of those who from the 
walls heard the outcry." These were the watchmen stationed on the 
wall forming the chieftain's palace, that inclosed the whole mass of 
buildings {of wealle). 

As far as we can judge by the description given in the poem, Hrothgar 
and his household in their bowers or bed-chambers had heard little of 
the tumult, but they went early in the morning to the hall to rejoice in 
Beowulf's victory. There was great feasting again in the hall that day, 
and Beowulf and his followers were rewarded with rich gifts. After 
dinner the minstrel again took up the harp, and sang some of the 
favourite histories of their tribe. " The lay was sung, the song of the 
gleeman, the joke rose again, the noise from the benches grew loud, cup- 
bearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels." Then the queen, "under 
a golden crown," again served the cup to Hrothgar and Beowulf. She 



1 6 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

afterwards went as before to her seat, and " there was the costliest of 
feasts, the men drank wine," until bedtime arrived a second time. 
While their leader appears to have been accommodated with a chamber, 
Beowulf's men again occupied the hall. " They bared the bench- 
planks ; it was spread all over with beds and bolsters ; at their heads 
they set their war-rims, the bright shield-wood; there, on the bench, 
might easily be seen, above the warrior, his helmet lofty in war, the 
ringed mail-shirt, and the solid shield ; it was their custom ever to be 
ready for war, both in house and in field." 

Grendel had a mother (it was the primitive form of the legend of the 
devil and his dam), and this second night she came unexpectedly to 
avenge her son, and slew one of Hrothgar's favourite counsellors and 
nobles, who must therefore have also slept in the hall. Beowulf and his 
warriors next day went in search of this new marauder, and succeeded 
in destroying her, after which exploit they returned to their own home 
laden with rich presents. 

These sketches of early manners, slight as they may be, are invaluable 
to us, in the absence of all other documentary record during several 
ages, until after the Anglo-Saxons had been converted to Christianity. 
During this long period we have, however, one source of invaluable 
information, though of a restricted kind — the barrows or graves of our 
primeval forefathers, which contain almost every description of article 
that they used when alive. In that solitary document, the poem of 
Beowulf, we are told of the arms which the Saxons used, of the dresses 
in which they were clad ; of the rings, and bracelets, and ornaments, of 
which they were proud; of the "solid cup, the valuable drinking-vessel," 
from which they quaffed the mead, or the vases from which they poured 
it; but we can obtain no notions of the form or character of these 
articles. From the graves, on the contrary, we obtain a perfect know- 
ledge of the form and design of all these various articles, without deriv- 
ing any knowledge as to the manner in which they were used. The 
subject now becomes a more extensive one ; and in the Anglo-Saxon 
barrows in England we find a mixture, in these articles, of Anglo-Saxon 
and Roman, which furnishes a remarkable illustration of the mixture 
of the races. We are all perfectly well acquainted with Roman types ; 
and in the few examples which can be here given of articles found in 



ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING-CUPS. 



*7 



early Anglo-Saxon barrows, I shall only introduce such as will enable 
us to judge what classes of the subsequent medieval types were really 
derived from pure Saxon or Teutonic originals. 

It is curious enough that the poet who composed the romance of 
"Beowulf" enumerates among the treasures intheancient barrow, guarded 
by the dragon who was finally slain by his hero, " the dear, or precious 
drinking-cup " (drync-fcet de'ore). Drinking-cups are frequently found in 
the Saxon barrows or graves in England. A group, representing the 




No. 1. — Anglo-Saxon Drinking-Glasses. 

more usual forms of these cups, is given in our cut, No. 1, found chiefly 
in barrows in Kent, and preserved in the collections of Lord Londes- 
borough and Mr Rolfe, the latter of which is now in the possession of 
Mr Mayer, of Liverpool. The example to the left no doubt represents 
the " twisted " pattern, so often mentioned in " Beowulf," and evidently 
the favourite ornament among the early Saxons. All these cups are of 
glass; they are so formed that it is evident they could not stand upright, 
so that it was necessary to empty them at a draught. This character- 
istic of the old drinking-cups is said to have given rise to the modern 
name of tumblers. 

That these glass drinking-cups — or, if we like to use the term, these 
glasses — were implements peculiar to the Germanic race to which the 
Saxons belonged, and not derived from the Romans, we have corrobo- 
rative evidence in discoveries made on the Continent. I will only take 
examples from some graves of the same early period, discovered at Sel- 
zen, in Rhenish Hesse, an interesting account of which was published at 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Maintz, in 1848, by the brothers W. and L. Lindenschmit. In these 
graves several drinking-cups were found, also of glass, and resembling 
in character the two middle figures in our cut, No. 1. Three specimens 
are given in the cut, No. 2. In our cut, No. 5 (see next page), is one of 
the cup-shaped glasses, also found in these Hessian graves, which closely 

resembles that given in the cut, No. 
1. None of the cups of the cham- 
pagne-glass form, like those found 
in England, occur in these foreign 
barrows. 

We shall find also that the pot- 
tery of the later Anglo-Saxon period 
presented a mixture of forms, partly 
derived from those which had be- 
longed to the Saxon race in their pri- 
mitive condition, and partly copied 
or imitated from those of the Romans. In fact, in our Anglo-Saxon 
graves we find much purely Roman pottery intermingled with earthen 
vessels of Saxon manufacture ; and this is also the case in Germany. 
As Roman forms are known to every one, we need only give the pure 
Saxon types. Our cut, No. 3, represents five examples, and will give a 




No. 2. — Germano-Saxon Drinking-GIasses. 




No. 3. — Anglo-Saxon Pottery. 

sufficient notion of their general character. The two to the left were 
taken, with a large quantity more, of similar character, from a Saxon 



ANGLO-SAXON POTTERY. 



19 



cemetery at Kingston, near Derby ; the vessel in the middle, and the 
upper one to the right, are from Kent ; and the lower one to the right 
is also from the cemetery at Kingston. Several of these were usually 
considered as types of ancient British pottery, until their real character 
was recently demonstrated, and it is corroborated by the discovery of 




No. 4. — Germano-Saxon Pottery. 

similar pottery in what I will term the Germano-Saxon graves. Four 
examples from the cemetery at Selzen are given in the cut, No. 4. We 
have here not only the rude-formed vessels with lumps on the side, but 
also the characteristic ornament of 
crosses in circles. The next cut, No. 
5, represents two earthen vessels of 
another description, found in the 
graves at Selzen. The one to the 
right is evidently the prototype of 
our modern pitcher. I am informed 
there is, in the Museum at Dover, a 
specimen of pottery of this shape, 
taken from an Anglo-Saxon barrow 
in that neighbourhood ; and Mr 

Roach Smith took fragments of another from an Anglo-Saxon tumulus 
near the same place. The other variation of the pitcher here given is 
remarkable, not on account of similar specimens having been found, as 
. far as I know, in graves in England, but because vessels of a similar 




No. 5. — Germano-Saxon Pottery and Glass. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




No. 6. — Anglo-Saxon Pottery. 



form are found rather commonly in the Anglo-Saxon illuminated manu- 
scripts. One of these is given in the group, No. 6, which represents 

three types of the later Anglo-Saxon 
pottery, selected from a large num- 
ber copied by Strutt from Anglo- 
Saxon manuscripts. The figure to 
the left, in this group, is a later 
Saxon form of the pitcher ; perhaps 
the singular form of the handle may 
have originated in an error of the 
draughtsman. 
Among the numerous articles of all kinds found in the early Anglo- 
Saxon graves, are bowls of metal (generally bronze or copper), often 

very thickly gilt, and of elegant 
forms ; they are, perhaps, borrowed 
from the Romans. Three examples 
are given in the cut, No. 7, all 
found in Kent. They were pro- 
bably intended for the service of the 
table. Another class of utensils 
found rather commonly in the 
Anglo-Saxon barrows are buckets. 
The first of those represented in 
our cut, No. 8, was found in a 
Saxon barrow near Marlborough, in Wiltshire ; the other was found on 
the Chatham lines. As far as my own experience goes, I believe these 

buckets are usually found with male 
skeletons, and from this circum- 
stance, and the fact of their being 
usually ornamented, I am inclined 
to think they served some purposes 
connected with the festivities of the 
hall; probably they were used to 
carry the ale or mead. The Anglo- 
Saxon translation of the Book of Judges (chap. vii. 20), renders 
hydrias confregissent by lo-brcecon tha bucas, " they broke the buckets." 




No. 7. — Anglo-Saxon Bowls. 




No. 8. — Anglo-Saxon Buckets. 



ANGLO-SAXON BUCKETS, ETC. 



A common name for this implement, which was properly buc, was ccscen, 
which signified literally a vessel made of ash, the favourite wood of the 
Anglo-Saxons. Our cut, No. 9, represents a bucket of wood with very 
delicately-formed bronze hoops and handle, found in a barrow in 
Bourne Park, near Canterbury. The wood was entirely decayed ; but 
the hoops and handle are in the collection of the late Lord Londes- 
borough. Such buckets have also been found under similar circum- 
stances on the Continent. The close resemblance between the 
weapons and other instruments found in the English barrows, and in 
those at Selzen, may be illustrated by a comparison of the two axes 





No. 9. — Anglo-Saxon Bucket. 



No. 10. — Saxon Axes. 



represented in the cut, No. 10. The upper one was found at Selzen ; 
the lower one is in the museum of Mr Rolfe, and was obtained from a 
barrow in the Isle of Thanet. The same similarity is observed between 
the knives, which is the more remarkable, as the later Anglo-Saxon 




No. 11. — Germano-Saxon Knife. 

knives were quite of a different form. The example, cut No. 11, taken 
from a grave at Selzen, is the only instance I know of a knife of this 
early period of Saxon history with the handle preserved ; it has been 
beautifully enamelled. This may be taken as the type of the primitive 
An do-Saxon knife. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Having given these few examples of the general forms of the imple- 
ments in use among the Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, 
as much to illustrate their manners, as described by "Beowulf," as to show 
what classes of types were originally Saxon, we will proceed to treat of 
their domestic manners, as we learn them from the more numerous and 
more definite documents of a later period. We shall find it convenient 
to consider the subject separately as it regards in-door life and out-door 
life, and it will be proper first that we should form some definite notion 
of an Anglo-Saxon house. 

We can already form some notion of the primeval Saxon mansion 
from our brief review of the poem of "Beowulf;" and we shall find that it 
continued nearly the same down to a late period. The most important 
part of the building was the hall, on which was bestowed all the orna- 
mentation of which the builders and decorators of that early period were 
capable. Halls built of stone are alluded to in a religious poem at the 
beginning of the Exeter book ; yet, in the earlier period at least, there 
can be little doubt that the materials of building were chiefly wood. 
Around, or near this hall, stood, in separate buildings, the bed-chambers, 
or bowers (Mr), of which the latter name is only now preserved as 
applied to a summer-house in a garden ; but the reader of old English 
poetry will remember well the common phrase of a brid hi bure, a lady 
in her bower or chamber. These buildings and the household offices 
were all grouped within an inclosure, or outward wall, which, I imagine, 
was generally of earth, for the Anglo-Saxon word, weatt, was applied to 
an earthen rampart, as well as to masonry. What is termed in the poem 
of "Judith," wealles gedt, the gate of the wall, was the entrance through 
this inclosure or rampart. I am convinced that many of the earthworks 
which are often looked upon as ancient camps, are nothing more than 
the remains of the inclosures of Anglo-Saxon residences. 

In "Beowulf," the sleeping-rooms of Horthgar and his court seem to 
have been so completely detached from the hall, that their ihmates did 
not hear the combat that was going on in the latter building at night. 
In smaller houses the sleeping-rooms were fewer, or none, until we arrive 
at the simple room in which the inmates had board and lodging together, 
with a mere hedge for its inclosure, the prototype of our ordinary cottage 
and garden. The wall served for a defence against robbers and enemies, 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 23 

while, in times of peace and tranquillity, it was a protection from in- 
discreet intruders, for the doors of the hall and chambers seem to have 
been generally left open. Beggars assembled round the door of the 
wall — the ostium domils — to wait for alms. 

The vocabularies of the Anglo-Saxon period furnish us with the 
names of most of the parts of the ordinary dwellings. The entrance 
through the outer wall into the court, the strength of which is alluded to 
in early writers, was properly the gate {gedt). The whole mass inclosed 
within this wall constituted the burh (burgh), or tun, and the inclosed 
court itself seems to have been designated as the cafer-twi or inburh. 
The wall of the hall, or of the internal buildings in general, was called a 
wag, or wah, a distinctive word which remained in use till a late period 
in the English language, and seems to have been lost partly through the 
similarity of sound.* The entrance to the hall, or to the other buildings 
in the interior, was the duru, or door, which was thus distinguished 
from the gate. Another kind of door mentioned in the vocabularies 
was a Mid-gata, literally a gate with a lid or cover, which was perhaps, 
however, a word merely invented to represent the Latin valva, which is 
given as its equivalent. The door is described in "Beowulf" as being 
" fastened with fire-bands" {fyr-bendum fcest, 1. 1448), which must mean 
iron bars.f Either before the door of the hall, or between the door and 
the interior apartment, was sometimes a selde, literally a shed, but per- 
haps we might now call it a portico. The different parts of the archi- 
tectural structure of the hall enumerated in the vocabularies are stapul, 
a post or log set in the ground ; stipere, a pillar ; beam, a beam ; rcefter, 
a rafter ; Iceta, a lath ; swer, a column. The columns supported bigels, 
an arch or vault, or fyrst, the interior of the roof, the ceiling. The 
hrof, or roof, was called also thecen, or thcecen, a word derived from the 

* The distinction between the wagke and walle continued to a comparatively late 
period. Halliwell, " Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," v. wagke, quotes 
the following lines from a manuscript of the fifteenth century : — 

" So hedousely that storme ganne falle, 
That sondir it braste bothe waghe and walle." 

t It appears not, however, to have been customary to lock the doors during the 
absence of the family, but merely to leave some one to take care of the house. This, 
at least, was the case in Winchester, as we learn from the Miracles of St Swithun, by 
the monk Lantfred. 



24 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

verb iheccan, to cover ; but although this is the original of our modern 
word thatch, our readers must not suppose that the Anglo-Saxon thcecen 
meant what we call a thatched roof, for we have the Anglo-Saxon word 
thtzc-tigel, a thatch-tile, as well as hrof-tigel, a roof-tile. There was some- 
times one story above the ground-floor, for which the vocabularies give 
the Latin word solarium, the origin of the later medieval word, soler ; 
but it is evident that this was not common to Anglo-Saxon houses, and 
the only name for it was iip-ftor, an upper-floor. It was approached 
by a stceger, so named from the verb stigan, to ascend, and the origin of 
our modern word stair. There were windows to the hall, which were 
probably improvements upon the ruder primitive Saxon buildings, for 
the only Anglo-Saxon words for a window are eag-thyrl, an eye-hole, 
and eag-duru, an eye-door. 

We have unfortunately no special descriptions of Anglo-Saxon houses, 
but scattered incidents in the Anglo-Saxon historians show us that this 
general arrangement of the house lasted down to the latest period of 
their monarchy. Thus, in the year 755, Cynewulf, King of the West 
Saxons, was murdered at Merton by the ^Etheling Cyneard. The cir- 
cumstances of the story are but imperfectly understood, unless we bear 
in mind the above description of a house. Cynewulf had gone to Mer- 
ton privately, to visit a lady there, who seems to have been his mistress, 
and he only took a small party of his followers with him. Cyneard, 
having received information of this visit, assembled a body of men, 
entered the inclosure of the house unperceived (as appears by the con- 
text), and surrounded the detached chamber {bur) in which was the 
king with the lady. The king, taken by surprise, rushed to the door 
{on tha duru eode), and was there slain fighting. The king's attendants, 
although certainly within the inclosure of the house, were out of hear- 
ing of this sudden fray (they were probably in the hall), but they were 
roused by the woman's screams, rushed to the spot, and fought till, 
overwhelmed by the numbers of their enemies, they also were all slain. 
The murderers now took possession of the house, and shut the 
entrance gate of the wall of inclosure, to protect themselves against 
the body of the king's followers who had been left at a distance. 
These, next day, when they heard what had happened, hastened to 
the spot, attacked the house, and continued fighting around the gate 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 25 

(yvib tha gatu), until they made their way in, and slew all the men who 
were there. Again, we are told, in the " Ramsey Chronicle," published 
by Gale, of a rich man in the Danish period, who was oppressive to his 
people, and, therefore, suspicious of them. He accordingly had four 
watchmen every night, chosen alternately from his household, who kept 
guard at the outside of his hall, evidently for the purpose of preventing 
his enemies from being admitted into the inclosure by treachery. He 
lay in his chamber, or bower. One night the watchmen, having drunk 
more than usual, were unguarded in their speech, and talked together 
of a plot into which they had entered against the life of their lord. He, 
happening to be awake, heard their conversation from his chamber, 
and defeated their project. We see here the chamber of the lord of the 
mansion so little substantial in its construction that its inmates could 
hear what was going on out of doors. At a still later period, a Nor- 
thumbrian noble, whom Hereward visited in his youth, had a building 
for wild beasts within his house or inclosure. One day a bear broke 
loose, and immediately made for the chamber or bower of the lady of 
the household, in which she had taken shelter with her women, and 
whither, no doubt, the savage animal was attracted by their cries. We 
gather from the context that this asylum would not have availed them, 
had not young Hereward slain the bear before it reached them. In 
fact, the lady's chamber was still only a detached room, probably 
with a very weak door, which was not capable of withstanding any 
force. 

The Harleian Manuscript, No. 603 (in the British Museum), contains 
several illustrations of Anglo-Saxon domestic architecture, most of 
which are rather sketchy and indefinite ; but there is one picture (fol. 
57, v°) which illustrates, in a very interesting manner, the distribution 
of the house. Of this an exact copy is given in the accompanying cut, 
No. 12.* The manuscript is, perhaps, as old as the ninth century, and 
the picture here given illustrates Psalm cxi., in the Vulgate version, the 
description of the just and righteous chieftain : the beggars are admitted 

* Strutt has- engraved, without indicating the manuscript from which it is taken, a 
small Saxon house, consisting of one hall or place for living in, with a chamber 
attached, exactly like the domestic chapel and its attached chamber in our cut, No. 
12. This seems to have been the usual shape of small houses in the Anglo-Saxon 
period. 



26 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



within the inclosure (where the scene is laid), to receive the alms of the 
lord ; and he and his lady are occupied in distributing bread to them, 
while his servants are bringing out of one of the bowers raiment to 




clothe the naked. The larger building behind, ending in a sort of 
round tower with a cupola, is evidently the hall — the stag's head seems 
to mark its character. The buildings to the left are chambers or 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 27 

bowers ; to the right is the domestic chapel, and the little room attached 
is perhaps the chamber of the chaplain. 

It is evidently the intention in this picture to represent the walls of 
the rooms as being formed, in the lower part, of masonry, with timber 
walls above, and all the windows are in the timber walls. If we make 
allowance for want of perspective and proportion in the drawing, it is 
probable that only a small portion of the elevation was masonry, and 
that the wooden walls {parities) were raised above it, as is very com- 
monly the case in old timber-houses still existing. The greater portion of 
the Saxon houses were certainly of timber ; in Alfric's colloquy, it is the 
carpenter, or worker in wood {se treo-wyrhta), who builds houses ; and, as 
I have said, the very word to express the operation of building, timbrian, 
getimbrian, signified literally to construct of timber. We observe in the 
above representation of a house, that none of the buildings have more 
than a ground-floor, and this seems to have been a characteristic of the 
houses of all class'es. The Saxon word flbr is generally used in the 
early writers to represent the Latin pavimentum. Thus the " variegated 
floor" {on fdgre flbr) of the hall mentioned in " Beowulf" (1. 1454) was a 
paved floor, perhaps a tessellated pavement ; as the road spoken of in 
an earlier part of the poem {street wees stdn-fdh, the street was stone- 
variegated, 1. 644) describes a Roman paved-road. The term upper-floor 
occurs once or twice, but only I think in translating from foreign Latin 
writers. The only instance that occurs to my memory of an upper- 
floor in an Anglo-Saxon house, is the story of Dunstan's council at Calne* 
"in 978, when, according to the "Saxon Chronicle," the witan or council 
fell from an upper-floor (of ane tip-floraii), while Dunstan himself 
avoided their fate by supporting himself on a beam {uppo?i anum beame). 
The buildings in the above picture are all roofed with tiles of different 
forms, evidently copied from the older Roman roof-tiles. Perhaps the 
flatness of these roofs is only to be considered as a proof of the draughts- 
man's ignorance of perspective. One of Alfric's homilies applies the 
epithet steep to a roof — on tham stieela?i h?'qfe. The hall is not unfre- 
quently described as lofty. 

The collective house had various names in Anglo-Saxon. It was 
called Mis, a house — a general term for all residences great or small ; 
it was called heal or hall, because that was the most important part of 



28 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

the building — we still call gentlemen's seats halls ; it was called ham, as 
I have said before, as being the family residence or home of its pos- 
sessor ; and it was called tun, in regard of its inclosure. 

The Anglo-Saxons chose for their country-houses a position which 
commanded a prospect around, because such sites afforded protection, 
at the same time that they enabled the possessor to overlook his own 
landed possessions. The " Ramsey Chronicle," describing the beautiful 
situation of the mansion at " Schitlingdonia " (Shitlington), in Bedford- 
shire, tells us that the surrounding country lay spread out like a pano- 
rama, from the door of the hall — ubi ab ostio aula tota fere villa et late 
patens ager arabilis oculis subjacet intimitis. 



CHAPTER IV. 

In-Door Life among the Anglo-Saxons. — The Hall and its Hospitality. — 
The Saxon Meal. — Provisions and Cookery. — After-Dinner Occu- 
pations. — Drunken Brawls. 

THE introductory observations in the preceding chapter will be 
sufficient to show that the mode of life, the vessels and utensils, 
and even the residences, of the Anglo-Saxons, were a mixture of those 
they derived from their own forefathers with those which they bor- 
rowed from the Romans, whom they found established in Britain. It 
is interesting to us to know that we have retained the ordinary forms 
of pitchers and basins, and, to a certain degree, of drinking-vessels, 
which existed so many centuries ago among our ancestors before they 
established themselves in this island. The beautiful forms which had 
been brought from the classic South were not able to supersede national 
habit. Our modern houses derive more of their form and arrange- 
ment from those of our Saxon forefathers than from any other source. 
We have seen that the original Saxon arrangement of a house was 
preserved by that people to the last ; but it does not follow that they 
did not sometimes adopt the Roman houses they found standing, 
although they seem never to have imitated them. I believe Lord 
Lytton's description of the Saxonised Roman house inhabited by 
Hilda, to be quite truthful* Roman villas, when uncovered at the 
present day, are sometimes found to have undergone alterations which 
can only be explained by supposing that they were made when later 
possessors adapted them to Saxon manners. Such alterations appear 
to me to be visible in the villa at Hadstock, in Essex, opened by the 
* In " Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings." 



3° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



late Lord Braybrooke.* In one place the outer wall seems to have 
been broken through to make a new entrance, and a road of tiles, 
which was supposed to have been the bottom of a water-course, was 
more probably the paved pathway made by the Saxon possessor. 
Houses in those times were seldom of long duration. We learn from 
the domestic anecdotes given in saints' legends and other writings, 
that they were very frequently burnt by accidental fires ; thus the main 
part of the house, the timber-work, was destroyed ; and as ground was 
then not valuable, and there was no want of space, it was much easier 
to build a new house in another spot, and leave the old foundations 
till they were buried in rubbish and earth, than to clear them away in 
order to rebuild on the same site. Earth soon accumulated under 
such circumstances ; and this accounts for our finding, even in towns, 
so much of the remains of the houses of an early period undisturbed 
at a considerable depth under the present surface of the ground. 

It has already been observed that the most important part of the 
Saxon house was the hall. It was the place where the household 
{hired) collected round their lord and protector, and where the visitor 
or stranger was first received, — the scene of hospitality. The house- 
holder there held open-house, for the hall was the public apartment, 
the doors of which were never shut against those who, whether known 
or unknown, appeared worthy of entrance. The reader of Saxon hisn 
tory will remember the beautiful comparison made by one of King 
Edwin's chieftains in the discussion on the reception to be given to the 

* I believe that another example of the change of the Roman villa into the great 
Saxon mansion may be pointed out in Knebworth, in Hertfordshire, the family man- 
sion of Lord Lytton, the Anglo-Saxon name of which would be Knebbas weorth — the 
agricultural or rural mansion of Knebba, which is a very good Anglo-Saxon name. 
We know that the villa was an agricultural establishment, and there are undoubted 
traces of the former existence of a Roman villa at Knebworth. Close adjoining to 
the modern park are found several barrows, probably the tombs of some of the 
Roman lords of the villa. When the land was divided among the Anglo-Saxon 
conquerors, the one to whose lot it fell seems to have imitated his Roman prede- 
cessors as far as he could, and continued to occupy it as an agricultural villa, giving 
to it the name, by which it would be known in his own language, of a weorth. 
Perhaps the present mansion of Knebworth stands on or near the site of the Roman 
villa. 

Wherever we find a modern local name ending in %t:orth or worthy (representing the 
Anglo-Saxon weor^ or weoityg), we may, I think, assume it to be the site of a Roman 
villa. 



WALL- TAPES TR Y. 3 1 



missionary Paulinus. " The present life of man, O king, seems to me, 
in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift 
flight of a sparrow through the hall where you sit at your meal in 
winter, with your chiefs and attendants, warmed by a fire made in the 
middle of the hall, whilst storms of rain or snow prevail without ; the 
sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst 
he is visible, is safe from the wintry storm, but after this short space of 
fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark 
winter from which he had emerged." Dining in private was always 
considered disgraceful, and is mentioned as a blot in a man's character. 
Internally, the walls of the hall were covered with hangings or 
tapestry, which were called in Anglo-Saxon wah-hrcegel, or wah-rift, 
wall-clothing. These appear sometimes to have been mere plain cloths, 
but at other times they were richly ornamented, and not unfrequently 
embroidered with historical subjects. So early as the seventh century, 
Aldhelm speaks of the hangings or curtains being dyed with purple 
and other colours, and ornamented with images, and he adds, that " if 
finished of one colour uniform, they would not seem beautiful to the 
eye." Among the Saxon wills printed by Hickes, we find several 
bequests of heall wah-riftas, or wall-tapestries for the hall ; and it 
appears that, in some cases, tapestries of a richer and more precious 
character than those in common use were reserved to be hung up only 
on extraordinary festivals. There were hooks or pegs on the wall, 
upon which various objects were hung for convenience. In an anec- 
dote told in the contemporary " Life of Dunstan," he is made to hang his 
harp against the wall of the room. Arms and armour more especially 
were hung against the wall of the hall. The author of the " Life 
of Hereward " describes the Saxon insurgents who had taken posses- 
sion of Ely as suspending their arms in this manner ; and in one 
of the riddles in the " Exeter Book," a war-vest is introduced speaking 
of itself thus : — 

hwilum hongige, Sometimes I hang, 

hyrstum frsetwed, with ornaments adorned, 

wlitig on wage, splendid on the wall, 

Jjaer weras drince^S, where men drink, 

freolic fyrd-sceorp. a goodly war- vest. — Exeter Book, p. 395. 

We have no allusion in Anglo-Saxon writers to chimneys, or fire- 



32 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



places, in our modern acceptation of the term. When necessary, the 
fire seems to have been made on the floor, in the place most con- 
venient. We find instances in the early saints' legends where the hall 
was burnt by incautiously lighting the fire too near the wall. Hence 
it seems to have been usually placed in the middle, and there can be 
little doubt that there was an opening, or, as it was called in later 
times, a louver, in the roof above, for the escape of the smoke. The 
historian Bede describes a Northumbrian king, in the middle of the 
seventh century, as having, on his return from hunting, entered the 
hall with his attendants, and all standing round the fire to warm 
themselves. A somewhat similar scene, but in more humble life, is 
represented in the accompanying cut, taken from a manuscript calendar 
of the beginning of the eleventh century (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. iv.) 
The material for feeding the fire is wood, which the man to the left is 

bringing from a heap, while his 
companion is administering to 
the fire with a pair of Saxon 
tongs (tangan). The vocabularies 
give tange, tongs, and bylig, bel- 
lows ; and they speak of col, coal 
(explained by the Latin carbo), 
and sinder, a cinder {scorium). 
As all these are Saxon words, and not derived from the Latin, we may 
suppose that they represent things known to the Anglo-Saxon race 
from an early period ; and as charcoal does not produce scorium, or 
cinder, it is perhaps not going too far to suppose that the Anglo-Saxons, 
like the Romans before them, were acquainted with the use of mineral 
coal. We know nothing of any other fire utensils, except that the 
Anglo-Saxons used a fyr-scofl, or fire-shovel. The place in which the 
fire was made was the heorth, or hearth. 

The furniture of the hall appears to have been very simple, for it 
consisted chiefly of benches. These had carpets and cushions; the 
former are often mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon wills. The Anglo- 
Saxon poems speak of the hall as being " adorned with treasures," trom 
which we are perhaps justified in believing that it was customary to 
display there in some manner or other the richer and more ornamental 




No. 13. — A Party at the Fire. 



THE HALL AND ITS HOSPITALITY. 33 

of the household vessels. Perhaps one end of the hall was raised 
higher than the rest for the lord of the household, like the dais of later 
times, as Anglo-Saxon writers speak of the heah-setl, or high seat. The 
table can hardly be considered as furniture, in the ordinary sense of 
the word : it was literally, according to its Anglo-Saxon name bord, a 
board that was brought out for the occasion, and placed upon tressels, 
and taken away as soon as the meal was ended. Among the inedited 
Latin cenigmata, or riddles, of the Anglo-Saxon writer Tahtwin, who> 
flourished at the beginning of the eighth century,, is one upon a table, 
which is curious enough to be given here, from the manuscript in the 
British Museum (MS. Reg. 12 C. xxiii.) The table, speaking in its 
own person, says that it is in the habit of feeding people with all sorts 
of viands ; that while so doing it is a quadruped, and is adorned with 
handsome clothing ; that afterwards it is robbed of all its apparel and 
when it has been thus robbed it loses its legs : — 

DE MENSA. 

Multiferis omnes dapibus saturare solesco, 
Quadrupedem hinc felix ditem me sanxerit astas, 
Esse tamen pulchris fatim dum vestibus orner, 
Certatim me prsedones spoliare solescunt; 
Raptis nudata exuviis mox membra relinquunt. 

In the illuminated manuscripts, wherever dinner scenes are repre- 
sented, the table is always covered with what is evidently intended for 
a handsome table-cloth, the myse-hrcegel or bord-clath\ The grand pre- 
paration for dinner was laying the board; and it is from this original 
character of the table that we derive our ordinary expression of receiving 
any one " to board and lodging." 

The hall was peculiarly the place for eating — and for drinking. The 
Anglo-Saxons had three meals in the day, — the breaking of their fast 
(breakfast) at the third hour of the day, which answered to nine o'clock 
in the morning, according to our reckoning ; the ge-reordung (repast), or 
non-mete (noon-meat), or dinner, which is stated to have been held at 
the canonical hour of noon, or three o'clock in the afternoon ; and the 
cefen-gereord {evening repast), afen-gyfl (evening food), cefen-mete (even- 
ing meat), cefen-thenung (evening refreshment), or supper, the hour of 
which is uncertain. It is probable, from many circumstances, that the 
latter was a meal not originally in use among our Saxon forefathers : 



34 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



perhaps their only meal at an earlier period was the dinner, which was 
always their principal repast ; and we may, perhaps, consider noon as 
mid-day, and not as meaning the canonical hour. 

As I have observed before, the table, from the royal hall down to the 
most humble of those who could afford it, was not refused to strangers. 
When they came to the hall-door, the guests were required to leave their 
arms in the care of a porter or attendant, and then, whether known or 
not, they took their place at the tables. One of the laws of King Cnut 
directs, that if, in the meantime, any one took the weapon thus depo- 
sited, and did hurt with it, the owner should be compelled to clear 
himself of suspicion of being cognisant of the use to be made of his 
arms when he laid them down. History affords us several remarkable 




No. 14. — An Anglo-Saxon Dinner-Party. 



instances of the facility of approach even to the tables of kings during 
the Saxon period. It was this circumstance that led to the murder of 
King Edmund in 946. On St Augustin's day, the king was dining at 
his manor of Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire; a bandit named Leofa, 
whom the king had banished for his crimes, and who had returned 
without leave from exile, had the effrontery to place himself at the royal 
table, by the side of one of the principal nobles of the court; the king 
alone recognised him, rose from his seat to expel him from the hall, and 
received his death-wound in the struggle. In the eleventh century, 
when Hereward went in disguise as a spy to the court of a Cornish 



THE SAXON MEAL. 



35 



chieftain, he entered the hall while they were feasting, took his place 
among the guests, and was but slightly questioned as to who he was 
and whence he came. 

In the early illuminated manuscripts, dinner scenes are by no means 
uncommon. The cut, No. 14 (taken from Alfric's version of Genesis, 
MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv. fol. 36, v°), represents Abraham's feast on 
the birth of his child. The guests are sitting at an ordinary long hall- 
table, ladies and gentlemen being mixed together without any apparent 
special arrangement. This manuscript is probably of the beginning of 
the eleventh century. The cut, No. 15, represents another dinner scene, 
from a manuscript probably of the tenth century (Tiberius, C. vi. fol. 5, 
v°), and presents several peculiarities. The party here is a very small 




No. 15. — Anglo-Saxons at Dinner. 

one, and they sit at a round table. The attendants seem to be serving 
them, in a very remarkable manner, with roast meats, which they bring 
to table on the spits (spitii) as they were roasted. Another festive scene 
is represented in the cut, No. 16, taken from a manuscript of the Psycho- 
machia of the poet Prudentius (MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 15, 
r°). The table is again a round one, at which Luxury and her com- 
panions are seated at supper {seo Gaines to hyre cefen-ge-reordiwi sitt). 

It will be observed that in these pictures, the tables are tolerably 
well covered with vessels of different kinds, with the exception of plates. 
There are one or two dishes of different sizes in fig. 14, intended, no 



36 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



doubt, for holding bread and other articles ; it was probably an utensil 
borrowed from the Romans, as the Saxon name disc was evidently taken 
from the Latin discus. It is not easy to identify the forms of vessels 
given in these pictures with the words which are found in the Anglo- 
Saxon language, in which the general term for a vessel is feet, a vat ; 
crocca, a pot or pitcher, no doubt of earthenware, is preserved in the 
modern English word crockery; and bolla, a bowl, ore, a basin, bledic 
and mele, each answering to the Latin patera, leefel and ceac, a pitcher or 
urn, hncep, a cup (identical in name with the hanap of a later period), 
flaxe, a flask, are all pure Anglo-Saxon words. Many of the forms 




No. 16. — A Supper Party. 



represented in the manuscripts are recognised at once as identical with 
those which are found in the earlier Anglo-Saxon graves. In the vo- 
cabularies, the Latin word amphora is translated by crocca, a crock; and 
lagena by eescen, which means a vessel made of ash wood, and was, in 
all probability, identical with the small wooden buckets so often found 
in the early Saxon ^graves. In a document preserved in Heming's 
chartulary of Canterbury, mention is made of " an cescen, which is other- 
wise called a back-bucket " {eescen the is othre namon hrygile-hcc gecleopad, 
Heming, p. 393), which strongly confirms the opinion I have adopted 
as to the purpose of the bucket found in the graves. 



PROVISIONS AND COOKERY. 37 

The food of the Anglo-Saxons appears to have been in general rather \ 
simple in character, although we hear now and then of great feasts, 
probably consisting more in the quantity of provisions than in any great 
variety or refinement in gastronomy. Bread formed the staple, which 
the Anglo-Saxons appear to have eaten in great quantities, with milk, 
and butter, and cheese. A domestic was termed a man's hlaf-cetan, or 
loaf-eater ; and the title of lady, given to the chieftain's wife, is the 
Anglo-Saxon hlaf-dige, or distributer of bread. There is a curious 
passage in one of Alfric's homilies, that on the life of St Benedict, 
where, speaking of the use of oil in Italy, the Anglo-Saxon writer ob- 
serves, " they eat oil in that country with their food as we do butter." 
The Anglo-Saxons, therefore, buttered their bread. Vegetables (wyrtan) 
formed a considerable portion of the food of our forefathers at this 
period ; beans (beand) are mentioned as articles of food, but I remember 
no mention of the eating of peas (fiisati) in Anglo-Saxon writers. A 
variety of circumstances show that there was a great consumption of 
fish, as well as of poultry. Of flesh meat, bacon (sfiic) was the most 
abundant, for the extensive oak forests nourished innumerable droves 
of swine. Much of their other meat was salted, and the place in 
which the salt meat was kept was called, on account of the great pre- 
ponderance of the bacon, a spic-hus, or bacon-house ; in latter times, 
for the same reason, named the larder. The practice of eating so 
much salt meat explains why boiling seems to have been the prevail- 
ing mode of cooking it. In the manuscript of Alfric's translation of 
Genesis, already mentioned, we have a figure of a boiling vessel 
(given in our cut, No. 17), which is placed over the fire on a tripod. 
This vessel was called a pan (J>anna — one Saxon writer mentions isen 
fianna, an iron pan) or a kettle {cytet). It is very curious to observe 
how many of our trivial expressions at the present day are derived from 
very ancient customs ; thus, for example, we speak of " a kettle of fish," 
though what we now term a kettle would hardly serve for this branch 
of cookery. In another picture (No. 1 8) we have a similar boiling vessel, 
placed similarly on a tripod, while the cook is using a very singular 
utensil to stir the contents. Bede speaks of a goose being taken down 
from a wall to be boiled. It seems probable that in earlier times among 
the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps at a later period, in the case of large 



38 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



feasts, the cooking was done out of doors. The only words in the 
Anglo-Saxon language for cook and kitchen, are cbc and cycene, taken 
from the Latin coquus and coquina, a circumstance which seems to show 
that they only improved their rude manner of living in this respect after 
they had become acquainted with the Romans. Besides boiled meats, 
they certainly had roast, or broiled, which they called brcede, meat which 
had been spread or displayed to the fire. The vocabularies explain the 
Latin coctus by " boiled or baked " (gesoden, gebacen). They also fried 
meat, which was then called hyrstyug, and the vessel in which it was 





No. 17.— A Saxon Kettle. 



No. 18. — A Saxon Cook. 



fried was called hyr sting-panne, a frying-pan. Broth, also [broth), was 
much in use. 

In the curious colloquy of Alfric (a dialogue made to teach the 
Anglo-Saxon youth the Latin names for different articles), three pro- 
fessions are mentioned as requisite to furnish the table : first, the Salter, 
who stored the store-rooms (cleafcui) and cellars (heddeme), and without 
whom they could not have butter (butere) — they always used salt butter 
— or cheese (cyse) ; next, the baker, without whose handiwork, we are 
told, every table would seem empty; and lastly, the cook. The work of 
the latter appears not at this time to have been very elaborate. " If you 
expel me from your society," he says, " you will be obliged to eat your 
vegetables green, and your flesh-meat raw, nor can you have any fat 
broth." " We care not," is the reply, " for we can ourselves cook our 



PROVISIONS AND COOKERY. 



39 



provisions, and spread them on the table." Instead of grounding his 
defence on the difficulties of his profession, the cook represents that in 
this case, instead of having anybody to wait upon them, they would be 
obliged to be their own servants. It may be observed, as indicating the 
general prevalence of boiling food, that in the above account of the 
cook, the Latin word coquere is rendered by the Anglo-Saxon seothan, 
to boil.* Our words cook and kitchen are the Anglo-Saxon cbc and 
cycene, and have no connection with the French cuisine. 

We may form some idea of the proportions in the consumption of 
different kinds of provisions among our Saxon forefathers, by the quan- 
tities given on certain occasions to the monasteries. Thus, according 
to the Saxon Chronicle, the occupier of an estate belonging to the 
Abbey of Medeshamstede (Peterborough) in 852, was to furnish yearly 




No. 19. — Anglo-Saxons at Table. 



sixty loads of wood for firing, twelve of coal (grcefa), six of fagots, two 
tuns of pure ale, two beasts fit for slaughter, six hundred loaves, and 
ten measures of Welsh ale. 

It will be observed in the dinner scenes given above, that the guests 
are helping themselves with their hands. Forks were totally unknown 
to the Anglo-Saxons for the purpose of carrying the food to the mouth, 
and it does not appear that every one at table was furnished with a 
knife. In the cut, No. 19 (taken from MS. Harl. No. 603, fol. 12, r°), 



* William of Malmesbury, de Gest. Pontif. printed in Gale, p. 249, describes the 
Saxons as .cooking their meat in lebete, evidently meaning the sort of vessel figured in 
the foregoing cuts. The Latin lebes, a cauldron or kettle, is interpreted in the early 
glossaries by the Anglo-Saxon hwer, or huer ; hwcer-boll or hwcer-cytel are interpreted 
in the Anglo-Saxon dictionaries as meaning a frying-pan, which is evidently not 
correct. 



4o 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



a party at table are eating without forks or knives. It will be observed 
here, as in the other pictures of this kind, that the Anglo-Saxon bread 
(hlaf) is in the form of round cakes, much like the Roman loaves in 
the pictures at Pompeii, and not unlike our cross-buns at Easter, 
which are no doubt derived from our Saxon forefathers. Another 
party at dinner without knives or forks is represented in the cut No. 
20, taken from the same manuscript (fol. 51, v°.) The tables here 




No. 20. — Anglo-Saxons at Table. 

are without table-cloths. The use of the fingers in eating explains to 
us whyit was considered necessary to wash the hands before and after 
the meal. 

The knife (cm/), as represented in the Anglo-Saxon illuminations, 
has a peculiar form, quite different from that of the earlier knife found in 
the graves, but resembling rather closely the form of the modern razor. 
Several of these Saxon knives have been found, and one of them, dug 




No. 21. — An Anglo-Saxon Knife. 



up in London, and now in the interesting museum collected by Mr 
Roach Smith, is represented in the accompanying cut, No. 21.* The 

* There is one of these knives in the Cambridge Museum, which has been there 
rather singularly labelled "a Roman razor!" Mr Roach Smith always suspected 
that these knives were late Saxon, and their similarity in form to those given in the 
manuscripts shows that he was correct. 



AFTER-DINNER OCCUPA TIONS. 



4i 



blade, of steel (style), which is the only part preserved, has been inlaid 
with bronze. 

When the repast was concluded, and the hands of the guests washed, 
the tables appear to have been withdrawn from the hall, and the party 
commenced drinking. From the earliest times, this was the occupation 
of the after-part of the day, when no warlike expedition or pressing 
business interfered with it. The lord and his chief guests sat at the 
high seat, while the others sat round on benches. An old chronicler, 
speaking of a Saxon dinner party, says, " After dinner they went to 
their cups, to which the English were too much accustomed." * This 
was the case even with the clergy, as we learn from many of the 
ecclesiastical laws. In the " Ramsey History," printed by Gale, we are 
told of a Saxon bishop who invited a Dane to his house in order to 
obtain some land from him, and to drive a better bargain, he determined 
to make him drunk. He therefore pressed him to stay to dinner, and 
"when they had all eaten enough, the tables were taken away, and 
they passed the rest of the day, till evening, drinking. He who held 
the office of cup-bearer, managed that the Dane's turn at the cup came 
round oftener than the others, as the bishop had directed him." We 
know by the story of Dunstan and King Eadwy, that it was considered 




No. 22. — An Anglo-Saxon Drinking Party. 

a great mark of disrespect to the guests, even in a king, to leave the 
drinking early after dinner. 

Our cut, No. 22, taken from the Anglo-Saxon calendar already men- 
tioned (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. vi.), represents a party sitting at the 
heah-setl, the high seat, or dais, drinking after dinner. It is the lord of 

* " Post prandium adpocula, quibus Angli nimis sunt assueti." — Chron. J. Walling- 
ford, in Gale, p. 542. 



42 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the household and his chief friends, as is shown by their attendant guard 
of honour. The cup-bearer, who is serving them, has a napkin in his 
hand. The seat is furnished with cushions, and the three persons seated 
on it appear to have large napkins or cloths spread over their knees. 
Similar cloths are evidently represented in our cut, No. 16. Whether 
these are the setl-hrcegel, or seat-cloths, mentioned in some of the Anglo- 
Saxon wills, is uncertain. 

It will be observed that the greater part of the drinking-cups bear a 
resemblance in form to those of the more ancient period which we find 
in Anglo-Saxon graves, and of which some examples have been given in 
the preceding chapter. We cannot tell whether those seen in the 
pictures be intended for glass or other material ; but it is certain that 
the Anglo-Saxons were ostentatious of drinking-cups and other vessels 
made of the precious metals. Sharon Turner, in his " History of the 
Anglo-Saxons," has collected together a number of instances of such 
valuable vessels. In one will, three silver cups are bequeathed; in 
another, four cups, two of which were of the value of four pounds ; in 
another, four silver cups, a cup with a fringed edge, a wooden cup 
variegated with gold, a wooden-knobbed cup, and two very handsome 
drinking-cups (smicere scencing-cuppaii). Other similar documents men- 
tion a golden cup, with a golden dish ; a gold cup of immense weight ; 
a dish adorned with gold, and another with Grecian workmanship 
(probably brought from Byzantium). A lady bequeaths a golden cup 
weighing four marks and a half. Mention of silver cups, silver basins, 
&c, is of frequent occurrence. In 833, a king gave his gilt cup, 
engraved outside with vine-dressers fighting dragons, which he called 
his cross-bowl, because it had a cross marked within it, and it had four 
angles projecting, also like a cross. These cups were given frequently 
as marks of affection and remembrance. The Lady Ethelgiva pre- 
sented to the Abbey of Ramsey, among other things, " two silver cups, 
for the use of the brethren in the refectory, in order that, while drink is 
served in them to the brethren at their repast, my memory may be more 
firmly imprinted on their hearts." * It is a curious proof of the value 



* " Duos ciphos argenteos .... ad serviendum fratribus in refectorio, quatenus, 
dum in eis potus edentibus fratribus ministratur, memoria mei eorum cordibus arctius 
inculcetur." — Hist. Ramesiensis, in Gale, p. 406. 



ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING- VESSELS. 



43 



of such vessels, that in the pictures of warlike expeditions, where two 
or three articles are heaped together as a kind of symbolical repre- 
sentation of the value of the spoils, vessels of the table and drinking- 
cups and drinking-horns are generally included. Our cut, No. 23, 
represents one of these groups (taken from the Cottonian Manu- 
script, Claudius, C. viii.) ; it contains a crown, a bracelet or ring, 
two drinking-horns, a jug, and two other vessels. 
/ The drinking-horn was in common use among the 
Anglo-Saxons. It is seen on the table or in the 
hands of the drinkers in more than one of our 
cuts. In the will of one Saxon lady, two buffalo- 
horns are mentioned ; three horns worked with 
gold and silver are mentioned in one inventory ; 
and we find four horns enumerated among the 
effects of a monastic house. The Mercian King 
Witlaf, with somewhat of the sentiment of the 
Lady Ethelgiva, gave to the Abbey of Croyland 
the horn of his table, "that the elder monks may drink from it on 
festivals, and in their benedictions remember sometimes the soul of 
the donor." 

We have a fine example of these early drinking horns in what is 




No. 23. — Articles of Value. 




No. 24. — Horn of Ulphus. 



called the horn of Ulphus (Wulf,) which has been preserved in the 
Cathedral of York, where it is now shown in the vestry. It is repre- 
sented in the accompanying cut, No. 24. 

The liquors drunk by the Saxons were chiefly ale and mead ; the \ 
immense quantity of honey that was then produced in this country, as 
we learn from Domesday-book and other records, shows us how great 



44 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



must have been the consumption of the latter article. Welsh ale is 
especially spoken of. Wine was also in use, though it was an expensive 
article, and was in a great measure restricted to persons above the 
common rank. According to Alfric's Colloquy, the merchant brought 
from foreign countries wine and oil ; and when the scholar is asked why 
he does not drink wine, he says he is not rich enough to buy it, " and 
wine is not the drink of children or fools, but of elders and wise men." 
Our Teutonic forefathers appear to have been made acquainted with 
wine through the Romans, from whom the Anglo-Saxons borrowed the 
name, their word win, the Latin vinum, for they had no word of their 
own for it, and they no doubt found it here when they settled in this 
island province. Afterwards it appears to have been especially in 
favour among the clergy. There were vineyards in England in the times 
of the Saxons, and wine was made from them ; but they were chiefly 
attached to the monastic establishments, few of which were without a 
vineyard. William of Malmesbury speaks of a vineyard attached to 
his monastery, which was first planted at the beginning of the eleventh 
century by a Greek monk who settled there, and who spent all his time 
in cultivating it. But wine appears never to have been a common 
drink among the Anglo-Saxons, but to have been, even till a late date, 
a special cause of over-indulgence when introduced into their feasts. We 
learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that, in the year 1012, when the 
Danish army assembled at London, under Edric Streona, and put to 
death Archbishop yElfheah, that this outrage arose partly from the ex- 
citement of drunkenness, into which they had fallen in consequence 
of " wine having been brought thither from the south," meaning pro- 
bably from the vineyards in our southern counties. Various cir- 
cumstances caused the cultivation of the vine to be abandoned in 
our island ; and indeed the quality of the wine produced here must 
have been far inferior to that of the Continent. Some contempo- 
rary writers inform us that the wine in England was hardly potable, 
and foreign wines soon began to be imported in large quantities, 
until in the thirteenth century they were found here in abundance. 
In the time of King John the sale of wine was encouraged by royal 
ordinances. 

In their drinking, the Anglo-Saxons had various festive ceremonies, 



ANGLO-SAXON AMUSEMENTS. 



45 



one of which is made known to us by the popular story of the lady 
Rowena and the British king. When the ale or wine was first served 
the drinkers pledged each other, with certain phrases of wishing health, 
not much unlike the mode in which we still take wine with each other 
at table, or as people of the less refined classes continue to drink the 
first glass to the health of the company ; but among the Saxons the 
ceremony was accompanied with a kiss. In our cut, No. 14 (p. 34), the 
party appear to be pledging each other. 

The Anglo-Saxon potations were accompanied with various kinds ot 
amusements. One of these was telling stories, and recounting the 
exploits of themselves or of their friends. Another was singing their 
national poetry, to which the Saxons were much attached. In the less 




No. 25. — Drinking and Minstrelsy. 



elevated class, where professed minstrels were not retained, each guest 
was minstrel in his turn. Caedmon, as his story is related by Bede, 
became a poet through the emulation thus excited. One of the eccle- 
siastical canons enacted under King Edgar enjoins "that no priest be 
a minstrel at the ale (ealu-scbfi), nor in any wise act the gleeman (gliwige), 
with himself or with other men." In the account of the murder of 
King Ethelbert in Herefordshire, by the treachery of Offa's wicked 
queen (a.d. 792), we are told that the royal party, after dinner, "spent 
the whole day with music and dancing in great glee." The cut, No. 
25 (taken from the Harl. MS., No. 603), is a perfect illustration of this 
incident of Saxon story. The cup-bearer is serving the guest with 
wine from a vessel which is evidently a Saxon imitation of the Roman 
amphora ; it is perhaps the Anglo-Saxon sester or scesfer ; a word, no 



46 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



doubt, taken from the Latin sextarius, and carrying with it, in general, 
the notion of a certain measure. In Saxon translations from the Latin, 
amphora is often rendered by sester. We have here a choice party of 
minstrels and gleemen. Two are occupied with the harp, which ap- 
pears, from a comparison of "Beowulf" with the later writers, to have 
been the national instrument. It is not clear from 
the picture whether the two men are playing both 
on the same harp, or whether one is merely holding 
the instrument for the other. Another is perhaps 
intended to represent the Anglo-Saxon fithelere, 
playing on the fithele (the modern English words 
fiddler and fiddle) ■ but his instrument appears 
rather to be the cittern, which was played with the 
fingers, not with the bow. Another representation 
of this performer, from the same manuscript, is 
given in the cut, No. 26, where the instrument is better defined. The 
other two minstrels, in No. 25, are playing on the horn, or on the Saxon 
pip, or pipe. The two dancers are evidently a man and a woman, and 
another lady to the extreme right seems preparing to join in the same 
exercise. We know little of the Anglo-Saxon mode of dancing, but to 




No. 26.— An Anglo- 
Saxon Fithelere. 




No. 27. — Anglo-Saxon Minstrels. 



judge by the words used to express this amusement hoppan (to hop), 
saffian and stellan (to leap), and iumbian (to tumble), it must have been 
accompanied with violent movements. Our cut, No. 27 (from the Cot- 



ANGLO-SAXON MUSICIANS. 47 

tonian MS., Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 16, v°), represents another party of 
minstrels, one of whom, a female, is dancing, while the other two are 
playing on a kind of cithara and on the Roman double flute. The 
Anglo-Saxon names for the different kinds of musicians most frequently 
spoken of were hearpere, the harper ; bymere, the trumpeter ; pipere, the 
player on the pipe or flute ; fithelere, the fiddler ; and hom-blawere, the 
horn-blower. The gligman, or gleeman, was the same who, at a later 
period, was called, in Latin, joadator, and, in French, a jougleur ; and 
another performer, called truth, is interpreted as a stage-player, but was 
probably some performer akin to the gleeman. The harp seems to 
have stood in the highest rank, or, at least, in the highest popularity, of 
musical instruments ; it was termed poetically the gleb-beam, or the glee- 
wood, the wood of joy. 

Although it was considered a very fashionable accomplishment among 
the Anglo-Saxons to be a good singer of verses and a good player on 
the harp, yet .the professed minstrel, who went about to every sort of 
joyous assemblage, from the festive hall to the village wake, was a per- 
son not esteemed respectable. He was beneath consideration in any 
other light than as affording amusement, and as such he was admitted 
everywhere, without examination. It was for this reason that Alfred, 
and subsequently Athelstan, found such easy access in this garb to the 
camps of their enemies ; and it appears to have been a common dis- 
guise for such purposes. The group given in the last .cut (No. 27) are 
intended to represent the persons characterised in the text (of Pruden- 
tius) by the Latin word ganeones (vagabonds, ribalds), which is there 
glossed by the Saxon term gleemen {ganeonum, gliwig-manna). Besides 
music and dancing, they seem to have performed a variety of tricks and 
jokes, to while away the tediousness of a Saxon afternoon, or excite 
the coarse mirth of the peasant. That such performers, resembling in 
many respects the Norman jougleur, were usually employed by Anglo- 
Saxons of wealth and rank, is evident from various allusions to them. 
Gaimar has preserved a curious Saxon story of the murder of King 
Edward by his stepmother (a.d. 978), in which the Queen is represented 
as having in her service a dwarf minstrel, who is employed to draw the 
young king alone to her house. According to the Anglo-Norman 
relater of this story, the dwarf was skilled in various modes of dancing 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DA YS. 



and tumbling, characterised by words of which we can hardly now point 
out the exact distinction, "and could play many other games." 

" Wolstanet un naim aveit, 
Ki baler e trescher saveit ; 
Si saveit sailler e tumber, 
E altres gius plusurs juer." 

In a Saxon manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, 
C. vi.), among the minstrels attendant on King David (represented in 




No. 28. — Anglo-Saxon Minstrels and Gleeman. 

our cut, No. 28), we see a gleeman, who is throwing up and catching 
knives and balls, a common performance of the later Norman joug- 
leurs, as well as of our modern mountebanks. Some of the tricks and 
gestures of these performers were of the coarsest description, such as 
could only be tolerated in a rude state of society. An example will be 
found in a story told by William of Malmesbury of wandering minstrels, 



DR UNKEN BRA WLS. 49 


whom he had seen performir 


ig at a festival at that monastery when he 


was a child, and which we can hardly venture to give even under the 


veil of the original Latin. 




A poem in the Exeter Manuscript describes the wandering character 


of the Saxon minstrels. He tells us : — 


Swa scrij>ende 


Thus roving 


gesceapum hweorfaft 


with their lays go 


gleo-men gumena 


the gleemen of men 


geond grunda fela, 


over many lands, 


J>earfe secgaS, 


state their wants, 


J> one-word sprecaj?. 


utter words of thank, 


simle sir8 o]>j>e norft 


always south or north 


sumne gemetaft 


they find one 


gydda gleawne, 


knowing in songs, 


geofum unhneawne. 


who is liberal of gifts. — Exeter Book, p. 326. 


We are not to suppose that 


our Anglo-Saxon forefathers remained at 1 


table merely drinking and listening. On the contrary, the perform- 


ance of the mhistrels appears 


to have been only introduced at intervals, 


between which the guests talked, joked, propounded and answered 


riddles, boasted of their own 


exploits, disparaged those of others, and, 


as the liquor took effect, became noisy and quarrelsome. The moral 


poems often allude to the 


quarrels and slaughters in which feasts 


ended. One of these poems 


,. enumerating the various endowments of 


men, says : — 




sum bift wrsed tsefie. ;- 


one is expert at dice ; 


sum bift gewittig 


one is witty 


set win-J>ege, 


at wine-bibbing, 


beor-hyrde god. 


a good beer-drinker. — Exeter Book, p. 297 


A " Monitory Poem," in the 


same collection, thus describes the man- 


ners of the guests in hall : — 




}>onne monige beoft 


but many are 


msefel-hergendra, 


lovers of social converse, 


wlonce wig-smi]>as, 


haughty warriors, 


win-burgum in, 


in pleasant cities, 


sittaj) set symble, 


they sit at the feast, 


soft-gied wrecaft, 


tales recount, 


wordum wrixla^, 


in words converse, 


witan fundiaft 


strive to know 


hvvyle sesc-stede 


who the battle place 


inne in raecede 


within the house 



5° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



mid werum wunige ; 
J>onne win hweteft 
beornes breost-sefan, 
breahtme stigeft 
cirm on corJ>re, 
cwide-scral leta]> 
missenlice. 



will with men abide ; 

then wine wets 

the man's breast-passions, 

suddenly rises 

clamour in the company, 

an outcry they send forth] 

various. — Exeter Book, p. 314. 



In a poem on the various fortunes of men, and the different ways in 
which they come by death, we are told : — 



sumum meces ecg 
on meodu-bence, 
yrrum ealo-wosan, 
ealdor ojjmngeft, 
were win-sadum. 



from one the sword's.-edge 

on the mead-bench, 

angry with ale, 

life shall expel, 

a wine-sated man. — Exeter Book, p. 330. 



And in the metrical legend of St Juliana, the Evil-one boasts : — 



sume ic larum geteah, 
to geflite fremede, 
J> set hy f seringa 
eald-afJ>oncan 
edniwedan, 
beore druncne ; 
ic him byrlade 
wreht of wege, 
fast hi in win-sale 
Jrnrh sweord-gripe 
sawle forletan 
of flaesc-homan. 



some I by wiles have drawn, 

to strife prepared, 

that they suddenly 

old grudges 

have renewed, 

drunken with beer ; 

I to them poured 

discord from the cup, 

so that they in the social hall 

through gripe of sword 

the soul let forth 

from the body. — Exeter Book, p. 271. 



There were other amusements for the long evenings besides those 
which belonged especially to the hall, for every day was not a feast- 
day. The hall was then left to the household retainers and their 
occupations. But we must now leave this part of the domestic estab- 
lishment. The ladies appear not to have remained at table long after 
dinner — it was somewhat as in modern times — they proceeded to their 
own special part of the house — the chamber — and thither it will be my 
duty to accompany them in the next chapter. I have described all 
the ordinary scenes that took place in the Anglo-Saxon hall. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Chamber and its Furniture. — Beds and Bedrooms. — Infancy and 
Childhood among the Anglo-Saxons. — Character and Maimers of 
the Anglo-Saxon Ladies. — Their Cruelty to their Servants. — Their 
Amusements. — The Garden ; Love of the Anglo-Saxons for Flowers. 
— Anglo-Saxon Punishments. — Almsgiving. 

THE bower or chamber, which, as before stated, was, in the 
original" Saxon mansions, built separate from the hall, was a 
more private apartment than the latter, although it was still easy of 
access. In the houses of the rich and the noble there were, as may 
easily be supposed, several chambers devoted to the different purposes 
of the household, and to the reception" of visitors. It was in the 
chamber that the lord of the household transacted his private business, 
and gave his private audiences. We see by the story of King Edwy, 
that it was considered a mark of effeminacy to retire from the com- 
pany in the hall after dinner, to seek more quiet amusement in the 
chamber, where the men rejoined the ladies of the family; yet there 
are numerous instances which show that, except on festive occasions, 
this was a very common practice. In some cases, where the party was 
not an ostentatious or public one, the meal was served in a chamber 
rather than in the hall. According to the story of Osbert, king of 
Northumberland, and Beorn, the buzecarl, as told by Gaimar, it was in 
a chamber that Beorn's lady received the king, and caused the meal to 
be served to him, which ended in consequences so fatal to the country. 
We have very little information relating to- the domestic games and 
amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. They seem to have consisted, in a 
great measure, in music and in telling stories. They had games of 
hazard, but we are not acquainted with their character. Their chief 



52 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



game was named ttzfel or tcefl, which has been explained by dice and by 
chess ; one name of the article played with, tcefl-stan, a table-stone, 
would suit either interpretation ; but another, tcefl-mon, a table-man, 
would seem to indicate a game resembling our chess.* The writers 
immediately after the Conquest, speak of the Saxons as playing at chess, 
and pretend that they learnt the game from the Danes. Gaimar, who 
gives us an interesting story relating to the deceit practised upon King 
Edgar (a.d. 973) by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful 
Elfthrida, daughter of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady 
and her noble father as passing the day at chess. 

Orgar jouout a un esches, 
Un giu k'il aprist des Daneis : 
Od lui jouout Elstruet la bele. 

The " Ramsey History," published by Gale, describing a bishop's visit to 
court late at night, says that he found the king amusing himself with 
similar games.t An ecclesiastical canon, enacted under King Edgar, 
enjoined that a priest should not be a tceflere, or gambler. 

It was not usual, in the middle ages, to possess much furniture, for in 
those times of insecurity, anything movable, which could not easily be 
concealed, was never safe from plunderers. Benches, on which several 

persons could sit together, and a stool or 
a chair for a guest of more consideration, 
were the only seats. Our word chair is 
Anglo-Norman, and the adoption of the 
name from that language would seem to 
indicate that the movable to which it was 
applied was unknown to the great mass of 
the Anglo-Saxon population of the island. 
The Anglo-Saxon name for it was setl, a seat, or stol ; the latter pre- 
served in the modern word stool. We find chairs of different forms 
in the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, but they are always 
represented as the seats of persons of high rank and dignity, usually of 
kings. The two examples given in the accompanying cut (No. 29), 

* We shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter. 

t " Regem adhuc tesserarum vel scaccarum ludo longioris tsedia noctis relevantem 
invenit." 




No. 29. — Anglo-Saxon Chairs. 



THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 



53 



are taken from the Harleian MS., No. 603, fol. 54, v°, already referred 
to in our preceding chapters. It will be observed that, although very 
simple in form, they are both furnished with cushions. The chair in 
our cut, No. 30, taken from Alfric's translation of Genesis (MS. Cotton. 
Claudius, B. iv.), on which a king is seated, is of a different and more 
elegant construction. We sometimes find, in the manuscripts, chairs 
of fantastic form, which were, perhaps, creations of the artist's imagi- 
nation. Such a one is the singular throne on which King David is 
seated with his harp, in our cut, No. 31, which is also taken from the 





No. 30. — A King Seated. 



No. 31. — King David. 



Harleian Manuscript, No. 603 (fol. 68, v°.) In addition to the seat, 
the ladies in the chamber had a scamel or footstool. 

As we look over the pictures and the texts of the early manuscripts, 
we cannot but remark a considerable amount of dignity as well as of 
domestic familiarity in the Anglo-Saxon household. The head of the 
family and his lady seem generally to have sat side by side on one seat, 
a settle, as it was called in English of all ages, which was, as it were, the 
throne of the family, around which the children and the other members 
assembled. The group in our next engraving, No. 32, is taken from a 
fine illuminated manuscript of the latter end of the tenth, or beginning 
of the eleventh, century in the British Museum (MS. Cotton, Claudius, 
B. iv. fol. 46, v°), containing a copy of Archbishop Alfric's Anglo-Saxon 
translation of the Pentateuch. Its subject is the patriarch Jacob 



54 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



and his wife Leah, attended by Jacob's two sons by her handmaid 
Zilpah, Gad and Asher. It was the custom of the medieval illumina- 
tors always to represent in their drawings, whatever the subject, the 
costume and manners of their own time, and here we see no doubt an 




No. 32. — The Head of the Anglo-Saxon Family. 

Anglo-Saxon gentleman and his lady seated on their settle, and at- 
tended by their two sons, one of whom is furnished with what is probably 
intended for a playful sword, an easily understood accompaniment even 
of childish life in these primitive ages. It is an interesting family 
group. The father is dressed in his in-door costume, the mother in the 
full dress of the Anglo-Saxon dame. 

The same may be said of the group represented in our cut, No. 33. 
It is given by Willemin, in his " Monumens Inedits," from a manuscript 
in the National Library in Paris, written and illuminated at Treves 
towards the latter end of the tenth century, and therefore must be taken 
as representing Frankish costume and manners, which no doubt differed 
but little from those of the Anglo-Saxons. It evidently represents 
somewhat of a ceremonious interview, in which both are in full dress, 
and the lady is remarkable for the large handsome fibulae, or brooches, 



FAMILIAR INTERCOURSE. 



55 



which adorn her breast. In another group, No. 34, from a manuscript 
of nearly the same date, preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton, 
Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 31, r°), two personages of the different sexes appear 




No. 33. — -A noble Gentleman and Lady in conversation. 

similarly engaged in conversation, but in the open air, out of the house, 
and they furnish a similarly interesting picture of Anglo-Saxon costume 




No. 34. — An Anglo-Saxon Gentleman and Lady. 



and manners. Another picture, given in our engraving, No. 35, brings 
us a little lower in the social scale, for it evidently represents a party of 



56 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Anglo-Saxon gossips, belonging to the more ordinary class of the popu- 
lation, engaged in earnest conversation, while they are tending their 
children. The costume of these women is much less demonstrative, 
and they have their feet without stockings or shoes. It is still more 




No. 35. — Anglo-Saxon Gossips. 



curious that the infant children are entirely naked. A picture from 
another illuminated manuscript by an Anglo-Saxon artist, represented 
in our cut, No. 36, from the manuscript of the Psalms already men- 







No. 36. — Anglo-Saxon Parents and Child. 

tioned (MS. Harl. No. 603, fol. 15, v°), of the end of the tenth century, 
introduces another Anglo-Saxon father and mother, with their child 
entirely naked, standing apparently at the entrance to a temple. They 
also appear to be not of a high class of society. We may perhaps 
conclude from these examples, that it was customary with the people 



CANDLE-LIGHT. 57 



among the Anglo-Saxons to bring up their children to a certain age 
without clothing. 

There was a table used in the chamber or bower, which differed 
altogether from that used in the hall. It was named myse, disc (from 
the Latin discus), and beod ; all words which convey the idea of its 
being round — beodas (in the plural) was the term applied to the scales 
of a balance. The Latin phrase of the 127th Psalm, in circuity, menses 
iuce, which was evidently understood by the Anglo-Saxon translators as 
referring to a round table, is translated by one, on ymb-hwyrfte mysan 
thine, and by another, in ymb-hwyrfte beodes thines. If we refer back to 
our preceding chapter, we shall see, in the subjects which appear to 
exhibit a small domestic party (see cuts No. 15, 19, and 25), that the 
table is round ; and this was evidently the usual form given among the 
Anglo-Saxons to the table used in the chamber or private room. This 
form has been preserved as a favourite one in England down to a very 
recent period, ^as that of the parlour-table among the class of society 
most likely to retain Anglo-Saxon tastes and sentiments. In the pic- 
tures, the round table is generally represented as supported on three 
or four legs, though there are instances in which it was represented 
with one. In the latter case, the board of the table probably turned 
up on a hinge, as in our old parlour tea-tables ; and, in the former, it 
was perhaps capable of being taking off the legs ; for there is reason 
for believing that it was only laid out when wanted, and that, when no 
longer in use, it was put away on one side of the room or in a closet 
in the smallest possible compass. 

We have no information to explain to us how the bower or chamber 
was warmed. In the hall, it is probable that the fire gave warmth and 
light at the same time, although, in the fragment of the Anglo-Saxon 
poem relating to the fight at Finnesburg, there is an indistinct intimation 
that the hall was sometimes lighted with horns, or cressets ; but, in the 
chamber, during the long evenings of winter, it was necessary to have 
an artificial light to enable its occupants to read, or work, or play. The 
Anglo-Saxon name for this article, so necessary for domestic comfort, 
was candel or condel (our candle) ; and, so general was the application of 
this term, that it was even used figuratively as we now use the word 
lamp. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon poets spoke of the sun as rodores candel 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



(the candle of the firmament), woruld-candel (the candle of the world), 
heofon-condel (the candle of heaven), wyn-condel (the candle of glory). 
The candle was, no doubt, originally a mere mass of fat plastered round 
a wick (candel-weoc), and stuck upon an upright stick. Hence the in- 
strument on which it was afterwards supported received the name of 
candel-sticca or candel-stcef, a candlestick ; and the original idea was pre- 
served even when the candle-supporter had many branches, it being 
then called a candel-treow, or candle-tree. The original arrangement of 
the stick was also preserved ; for, down to a very recent period, the 
candle was not usually inserted in a socket in the candlestick as at pre- 
sent, but it was stuck upon a spike. The Anglo-Saxon writers speak of 
candel-snytels, or snuffers. Other names, less used, for a candle or some 
article for giving light, were blacern or blcecem, which is explained in 
glossaries by the Latin lucerna, and tkcecela, the latter signifying merely 
a light. It was usual, also, among our Saxon forefathers, as among 
ourselves, to speak of the instrument for illumination as merely leoht, a 
light — " bring me a light." A candlestick and candle are represented 
in one of the cuts in our last chapter (cut No. 19). The Anglo-Saxons, 
no doubt, derived the use of lamps from the Romans ; and they were 
so utterly at a loss for a word to describe this mode of illumination, that 
they always called it leoht-fcet, a light-vat, or vessel of 
light. In our cut (No. 37), we have an Anglo-Saxon 
lamp, placed on a candelabrum or stand, exactly in the 
Roman manner. It will be remembered that Asser, a 
writer of somewhat doubtful authenticity, ascribes to 
King Alfred the invention of lanterns, as a protection to 
the candle, to prevent it from swealing in consequence 
of the wind entering through the crevices of the apart- 
ments — not a very bright picture of the comforts of an 
Anglo-Saxon chamber. The candles were made of wax 
as well as tallow. The candlestick was of different 
materials. In one instance we find it termed, in Anglo-Saxon, a leoht- 
isern, literally a light-iron : perhaps this was the term used for the lamp- 
stand, as figured in our last cut. In the inventories we have mention 
of ge-bonene candel-sticcan (candlesticks of bone), of silver gilt candle- 
sticks, and of ornamented candlesticks. 





THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 



59 



A bed was a usual article of furniture in the bower or chamber ; 
though there were, no doubt, in large mansions, chambers set apart as 
bedrooms, as well as chambers in which there was no bed, or in which 
a bed could be made for the occasion. The account given by Gaimar, 
as quoted above, of the visit of King Osbert to Beorn's lady, seems to 
imply that the chamber in which the lady gave the king his meal had a 
bed in it. The bed itself seems usually to have consisted merely of a 
sack (sceccing), filled with straw, and laid on a bench^ or board. Hence 
words used commonly to signify the bed itself were bcence (a bench), and 
streow (straw) : and even in King Alfred's translation of Bede, the state- 
ment, "he ordered to prepare a bed for him," is expressed in Anglo- 
Saxon by, he heht him streowne ge-gearwian, literally, he ordered to 
prepare straw for him. All, in fact, that had to be done when a bed 
was wanted, was to take the bed-sack out of the cyst, or chest, fill it with 
fresh straw, and lay it on the bench. In ordinary houses, it is probable 
that the bench for the bed was placed in a recess at the side of the 




No. 38. — Anglo-Saxon Beds. 



room, in the manner we still see in Scotland ; and hence the bed itself 
was called, among other names, cota, a cot ; cryb, a crib or stall ; and 
clif or dyf, a recess or closet. From the same circumstance a bedroom 
was called bed-clyfa or bed-deofa, and bed-cofa, a bed-closet or bed-cove. 
Our cut (No. 38), taken from Alfric's version of Genesis (Claudius, B. iv.), 
represents beds of this description. Benches are evidently placed in 
recesses at the side of the chamber, with the beds laid upon them, and 



6o 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




the recesses are separated from the rest of the apartment by a curtain, 
bed-warft or hryfte. The modern word bedstead means, literally, no 
more than " a place for a bed ; " and it is probable that what we call bed- 
steads were then rare, and only possessed by 
people of rank. Two examples are given in 
the annexed cut (No. 39), taken from the 
Harleian MS., No. 603. Under the head 
were placed a bolstar and a pyle (pillow), 
which were probably also stuffed with straw. 
The clothes with which the sleeper was 
covered, and which appear in the pictures 
scanty enough, were scyte, a sheet, bed-felt, a 
coverlet, which was generally of some thicker 
material, and bed-reaf, bed-clothes. We know 
from a multitude of authorities, that it was 
No. 39.— Anglo-Saxon Beds. the general custom of the middle ages to go 
into bed quite naked. The sketchy character of the Anglo-Saxon 
drawings renders it difficult sometimes to judge of minute details ; 
but, from the accompanying cuts, it appears that an Anglo-Saxon 
going into bed, having stripped all his or her clothes off, first wrapped 
round his body a sheet, and then drew over him the coverlet. 
Sharon Turner has given a list of the articles connected with the bed, 
mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon wills and inventories. In the will of a 
man we find bed-clothes (bed-reafes), with a curtain {hyrfte), and sheet 
(Jiopp-scytan), and all that thereto belongs • and he gives to his son the 
bed-reafe, or bed-cloth, and all its appurtenances. An Anglo-Saxon 
lady gives to one of her children two chests and their contents, her best 
bed-curtain, linen, and all the clothes belonging to it. To another child 
she leaves two chests, and " all the bed-clothes that to one bed be- 
long." On another occasion, we read oipidvinar unum de palleo : not a 
pillow of straw, as Sharon Turner very erroneously translates it, but a 
pillow of a sort of rich cloth made in the middle ages. A goat-skin 
bed-covering was sent to an Anglo-Saxon abbot; and bear-skins are 
sometimes noticed, as if a part of bed furniture. 

The bedroom, or chamber, and the sitting-room were usually identi- 
cal ; for we must bear in mind that in the domestic manners of the 



BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 61 



middle ages the same idea of privacy was not connected with the sleep- 
ing-room as at the present day. Gaimar has preserved an anecdote of 
Anglo-Saxon times curiously illustrative of this point. King Edgar — 
a second David in this respect — married the widow of Ethelwold, whom 
he had murdered in order to clear his way to her bed. The king and 
queen were sleeping in their bed, which is described as surrounded by 
a rich curtain, made of a stuff which we cannot easily explain, when 
Dunstan, uninvited, but unhindered, entered the chamber to expostulate 
with them on their wickedness, and came to the king's bedside, where he 
stood over them, and entered into conversation — 

A Londres ert Edgar li reis ; King Edgar was at London ; 

En son lit jut e la raine, He lay in his bed with the queen, 

Entur els out une curtine Round them was a curtain 

Delge, d'un paille escariman. Spread, made of scarlet paille. 

Es.te-vus 1'arcevesque Dunstan Behold Archbishop Dunstan 

Tres par matin vint en la chambre. Came into the chamber very early in the morning. 

Sur un pecul de vermail lambre On a bed-post of red plank 

S'est apue eel arcevesque. The archbishop leaned. 

In the account of the murder of King Ethelbert by the instrumentality 
of the queen of King Offa, as it is told by Roger of Wendover, we see 
the queen ordering to be prepared for the royal guest a chamber, which 
was adorned for the occasion with sumptuous furniture, as his bedroom. 
" Near the king's bed she caused a seat to be prepared, magnificently 
decked, and surrounded with curtains ; and underneath it the wicked 
woman caused a deep pit to be dug." Into this pit the king was pre- 
cipitated the moment he trusted himself on the treacherous seat. It is 
clear from the context that the chamber thus prepared for the king was 
a building apart, and that it had only a ground-floor. 

It was in the chamber that the child, while an infant, was brought 
up by its mother. We have few contemporary notices of the treatment 
of children at this early age by the Anglo-Saxons, but probably it dif- 
fered little from the general practice of a later period. Towards the 
close of the thirteenth century, an Englishman named Walter de Bib- 
blesworth, who wrote, as a great proportion of English writers at that 
day did, in French verse — French as it was then spoken and written in 
England — has left us a very curious metrical vocabulary, compiled in 
French with interlinear explanations of the words in English, which 



62 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



commences with man's infancy. " As soon as the child is born," says 
the author, " it must be swathed ; lay it to sleep in its cradle, where 
you must have a nurse to rock it to sleep." 

Kaunt le emfes sera nes, 
Lors deyt estre maylolez, 
En soun berz l'enfaunt chochet, 
De une bercere vus purvoyet, 
Ou par sa norice seyt berce. 

This was the manner in which the new-born infant was treated in all 
grades of society. If we turn to one of the more serious romances, we 
find it practised among princes and feudal chiefs equally as among the 
poor. Thus, when the Princess Parise, wandering in the wild woods, is 
delivered in the open air, she first wraps her child in a piece of sendal, 
torn apparently from her rich robe, and then binds, or swathels, it with 
a white cloth : — 

La dame le conroie a un pan de cendex, 

Puis a pris un blanc drap, si a ses flans bendez. — Parise la Duchesse, p. 76. 

When the robbers carry away the child by night, thinking they had 
gained some rich booty, they find that they have stolen a newly-born 
infant, " all swatheled." 

Lai troverent l'anffant, trestot anmalote. — Ibid. p. 80. 

This custom of swatheling children in their infancy, though evidently 
injurious as well as ridiculous, has prevailed from a very early period, 
and is still practised in some parts of Europe. We can hardly doubt 
that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers swatheled their children, although the 
practice is not very clearly described by any of their writers. We derive 
the word itself from the Anglo-Saxon language, in which beswethan 
means to swathe or bind, suethe signifies a band or swathe, and swethel 
or swcethil, a swaddling-band. These words appear, however, to have 
been used in a more extensive sense among the Anglo-Saxons than 
their representatives in more recent times, and as I have not met with 
them applied in this restricted sense in Anglo-Saxon writers, I should 
not hastily assume from them that our early Teutonic forefathers did 
swathe their new-born children. In an Anglo-Saxon poem on the birth 



CHILDHOOD AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 



63 



of Christ, contained in the Exeter Book (p. 45), the poet speaks 

of— 

Bearnes gebyrda, The child's birth, 

pa he in binne wses when he in the bin was 

in cildes hiw in a child's form 

clajram biwunden. with cloths wound round. 

These words refer clearly to the practice of swaddling ; and though the 
Anglo-Saxon artist has not here portrayed his object very distinctly, we 
can hardly doubt that, in our cut (No. 40), taken from the Anglo- 
Saxon manuscript of Csedmon, the child, which its mother is repre- 
sented as holding, is intended to be swathed. 

The word bin, used in the lines of the Anglo-Saxon poem just 
quoted, which means a hutch or a manger, has reference, of course, to 




No. 40. — Anglo-Saxon Mother and Child. 



the circumstances of the birth of the Saviour, and is not here employed 
to signify a cradle. This last word is itself Anglo-Saxon, and has stood 
its ground in our language successfully against the influence of the 
Anglo-Norman, in which it was called a bers or bersel, from the latter 
of which is derived the modern French betyeau. Another name for a 
cradle was crib; a poem in the Exeter Book (p. 87) speaks of did 
geong crybbe (a young child in a cradle). Our cut, No. 41, also taken 
from the manuscript of Csedmon, represents an Anglo-Saxon cradle of 
rather rude construction. The illuminators of a later period often 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



represent the cradle of elegant form and richly ornamented. The 
Anglo-Saxon child appears here also to be swaddled, but it is still 
drawn too inaccurately to be decisive on this point. The later illumi- 




No. 41. — Anglo-Saxon Child in its Cradle. 

nators were more particular and correct in their delineations, and leave 
no doubt of the universal practice of swaddling infants. A good 
example is given in our cut, No. 42, taken from an illuminated manu- 
script of the fourteenth century, of which a copy is given in the large 
work of the late M. du Sommerard. 

There is a very curious paragraph relating to infants in the Pceniten- 
tiale of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, which furnishes us with a 




No. 42.— Mother and Child. 



singular picture of early Anglo-Saxon domestic life, for Theodore 
flourished in the latter half of the seventh century. It may be perhaps 
right to explain that a Poenitentiale was a code of ecclesiastical laws 



CHILDHOOD AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 65 

directing the proportional degrees of penance for each particular' class 
and degree of crimes and offences against public and private morals, 
and that these laws penetrate to the innermost recesses of domestic life. 
The Pcenitentiale of Archbishop Theodore directs that " if a woman 
place her infant by the hearth, and a man put water in the cauldron, 
and it boil over, and the child be scalded to death, the woman must do 
penance for her negligence, but the man is acquitted of blame." * As 
this accident must have been of very frequent occurrence to require a 
particular direction in a code of laws, it implies great negligence in the 
Anglo-Saxon mothers, and seems to show that, commonly, at least at 
this early period, they had no cradles for their children, but laid them, 
swaddled as they were, on the ground close by the fire, no doubt to 
keep them warm, and that they left them in this situation. 

We are not informed if there were any fixed period during which the 
infant was kept in swaddling-cloths, but probably when it was thought 
no longer necessary to keep it in the arms or in the cradle, it was 
relieved from its bands, and allowed to crawl about the floor and take 
care of itself. Walter de Bibblesworth, the Anglo-Norman writer of 
the thirteenth century already quoted, tells us briefly that a child is left 
to creep about before it has learnt to go on its feet : — 

Le enfaunt covent de chatouner 
Avaunt ke sache a pees aler. 

When the Anglo-Saxon youth, if a boy, had passed his infancy, he 
entered that age which was called cnithad (boyhood, the same word 
which bore afterwards so different a signification), which lasted from 
about eight years of age until manhood. 

It is very rare that we can catch in history a glimpse of the internal 
economy of the Anglo-Saxon household. Enough, however, is told to 
show us that the Saxon woman in every class of society possessed those 
characteristics which are still considered to be the best traits of the 
character of Englishwomen; she was the attentive housewife, the tender 
companion, the comforter and consoler of her husband and family, 

* " Mater, si juxta focum infantem suum posuerit, et homo aquam in caldarmin 
miserit, et ebullita aqua infans superfusus mortuus fuerit ; pro negligentia mater 
poeniteat, et ille homo securus sit." 



66 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the virtuous and noble matron. Home was her especial place ; for we 
are told in a poem in the Exeter Book (p. 337), that "It beseems a 
damsel to be at her board (table) ; a rambling woman scatters words, 
she is often charged with faults, a man thinks of her with contempt, oft 
her cheek smites." In all ranks, from the queen to the peasant, we find 
the lady of the household attending to her domestic duties. In 686, 
John of Beverley performed a supposed miraculous cure on the lady of 
a Yorkshire earl ; and the man who narrated the miracle to Bede the 
historian, and who dined with John of Beverley at the earl's house after 
the cure, said, " She presented the cup to the bishop (John) and to me, 
and continued serving us with drink as she had begun, till dinner was 
over." Domestic duties of this kind were never considered as degrad- 
ing, and they were performed with a simplicity peculiarly characteristic 
of the age. Bede relates another story of a miraculous cure performed 
on an earl's wife by St Cuthbert, in the sequel of which we find the lady 
going forth from her house to meet her husband's visitor, holding the 
reins while he dismounts, and conducting him in. The wicked and 
ambitious queen Elfthrida, when her step-son, King Edward, approached 
her residence, went out in person to attend upon him, and invite him 
to enter, and, on his refusal, she served him with the cup herself, and 
it was while stooping to take it that he was treacherously stabbed by 
one of her attendants. In their chamber, besides spinning and weaving, 
the ladies were employed in needlework and embroidery, and the Saxon 
ladies were so skilful in this art, that their work, under the name of 
English work {opus Anglicum), was celebrated on the Continent. We 
read of a Saxon lady, named Ethelswitha, who retired with her maidens 
to a house near Ely, where her mother was buried, and employed herself 
and them in making a rich chasuble for the monks. The four princesses, 
the sisters of King Ethelstan, were celebrated for their skill in spinning, 
weaving, and embroidering ; William of Malmesbury tells us that their, 
father, King Edward, had educated them "in such wise, that in child- 
hood they gave their whole attention to letters, and; afterwards em-, 
ployed themselves in the labours of the distaff and the needle." The 
reader will remember in the story of the Saxon queen Osburgha, the 
mother of the great Alfred, how she sat in her chamber, surrounded by 
her children, and encouraging them in a taste for literature. The 



MANNERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LADIES. 67 

ladies, when thus occupied, were not inaccessible to their friends of 
either sex. When Dunstan was a youth, he appears to have been always 
a welcome visitor to the ladies in their " bowers," on account of his 
skill in music and in the arts. His contemporary biographer tells us of 
a noble lady, named Ethelwynn, who, knowing his skill in drawing and 
designs, obtained his assistance for the ornaments of a handsome stole 
which she and her women were embroidering. Dunstan is represented 
as bringing his harp with him into the apartment of the ladies, and 
hanging it up against the wall, that he might have it ready to play to 
them in the intervals of their work. Edith, the queen of Edward the 
Confessor, was well known as a skilful needlewoman, and as extensively 
versed in literature. Ingulfs story of his schoolboy-days, if it be true 
(for there is considerable doubt of the authenticity of Ingulfs "History"), 
and of his interviews with Queen Edith, gives us a curious picture of the 
simplicity of an Anglo-Saxon court, even at the latest period of their 
monarchy. ".I often met her," he says, "as I came from school, and 
then she questioned me about my studies and my verses ; and willingly 
passing from grammar to logic, she would catch me in the subtleties of 
argument. She always gave me two or three pieces of money, which 
were counted to me by her handmaiden, and then sent me to the royal 
larder to refresh myself." 

Several circumstances, arising out of certain rivalries of social insti- 
tutions, render it somewhat difficult to form an estimate of the moral 
character of the Anglo-Saxons. In the first place, before the introduc- 
tion of Christianity, marriage was a mere civil institution, consisting 
chiefly in a bargain between the father of the lady and the man who 
sought her, and was completed with few formalities, except those of 
feasting and rejoicing. After the young lady was out of the control of 
her parents, the two sexes were on a footing of equality to each other, 
and the marriage tie was so little binding, that, in case of disagreement, 
it was at the will of either of the married couple to separate, in which 
case the relatives or friends of each party interfered, to see that right 
was done in the proportional repayment of marriage money, dowry, &c, 
and after the separation each party was at liberty to marry again. This 
state of things is well illustrated in the Icelandic story of the Burnt 
Njal, recently translated by Dr Dasent ; and it was not abolished by the 



68 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



secular laws, after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, 
marriage still continuing to be, in fact, a civil institution. But the 
higher clergy, at least, who were those who were most strongly inspired 
with the Romish sentiments, disapproved entirely of this view of the 
marriage state, and. although the Saxon priests appear not to have hesi- 
tated in being present at the second marriages after such separations, 
they were apparently forbidden by the ecclesiastical laws from giving 
their blessing to them.'* With such views of the conjugal relations, we 
cannot be surprised if the associating together of a man and woman, 
without the ceremonies of marriage, was looked upon without disgust ; 
in fact, this was the case throughout western Europe during the Middle 
Ages, in spite of the doctrines of the Church, and the offspring was 
hardly considered as dispossessed of legal rights. It would be easy to 
point out examples illustrating this state of things. Again, the priest- 
hood among the unconverted Saxons was probably, as it appears among 
the Icelanders in the story of the Burnt Njal just alluded to, a sort of 
family possession,t the priests themselves being what we should call 
family men ; so that when the Anglo-Saxon people were Christians, and 
no longer pagans, the mass of the clergy, whatever may have been their 
sincerity as Christians, could not understand, or, at least, were unwilling 
to accept, the new Romish doctrine which required their celibacy. In 
both these cases, the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical writers, who are our 
chief authority on this subject, and were the most bigoted of the 



* This, I suppose, is the meaning of the canon of Alfric (No. 9), which allows a 
layman to marry, with a dispensation, a second time, " if his wife desert him " {gyf 'his 
wif tztfyFS) ; but the priest was not allowed to give his blessing to the marriage, be- 
cause it was a case in which the Church enjoined a penance, the performance of which 
it would be his duty to require. But the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical 
laws on this subject is rather obscure. 

f This fact of family priesthood may perhaps explain a circumstance in the early 
history of Northumbria, which has much puzzled some antiquaries ; I mean the story, 
given by Bede, of the conversion of King Edwin, and of the part acted on that occa- 
sion by the Northumbrian priest Coin. The place where the priesthood was held, 
and where the temple stood, was called Godmundingaham, a name which it has pre- 
served, slightly modified, to the present day. This name has been the victim of the 
most absurd attempts at derivation, which are not worth repeating here, because every 
one who knows the Anglo-Saxon language, and anything of Anglo-Saxon antiquities, 
is aware that it can only have one meaning — the home, or head residence, of the God- 
mundings, or descendants of Godmund. Perhaps the priesthood was at this time in 
the family of the Godmundings, and Coifi may have been then the head of the family. 



SUNDRY LAWS. 69 



Romish party, speak in terms of exaggerated virulence, on the score of 
morality, against practices which the Anglo-Saxon people had not been 
used to consider as immoral at all. Thus, we should be led to believe, 
from the accounts of these ecclesiastical moralists, that the Anglo-Saxon 
clergy were infamous for their incontinence, whereas their declamations 
probably mean only that the Anglo-Saxon priests persisted in having 
wives and families. The secular laws contain frequent allusions to the 
continuance of principles relating to the marriage state, which were 
derived from the older period of paganism, and some of these are ex- 
tremely curious. Thus, the laws of King Ethelred provide that a man 
who seduces another man's wife, shall make reparation, not only, as in 
modern times, by paying pecuniary damages, but also by procuring him 
another wife ! or, in the words of the original, "If a freeman have been 
familiar with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his wer-gild (the 
money compensation for the killing of a man), and provide another wife 
with his own money, and bring her home to the other." By a law of 
King Ine, "if any man buy a wife (that is, if the bargain with her 
father has been completed), and the marriage take not place," he was 
required to pay the money, besides other compensation. And again, 
by one of Alfred's laws, it was provided, " If any one deceive an un- 
betrothed woman, and sleep with her, let him pay for her, and have her 
afterwards to wife ; but if the father of the woman will not give her, let 
him pay money according to her dowry." Regulations relating to the 
buying of a wife are found in the Anglo-Saxon laws. 

We learn nothing in the facts of history to the discredit of the Anglo- y 
Saxon character in general. As in other countries, in the same condi- 
tion of society, they appear capable of great crimes, and of equally 
great acts of goodness and virtue. Generally speaking, their least 
amiable trait was the treatment of their servants or slaves ; for this class 
among the Anglo-Saxons were in a state of absolute servitude, might be 
bought and sold, and had no protection in the law against their masters 
and mistresses, who, in fact, had power of life and death over them. 
We gather from the ecclesiastical canons that, at least in the earlier 
periods of Anglo-Saxon history, it was not unusual for servants to be 
scourged to death by or by order of their mistresses. Some of the 
collections of local miracles, such as those of St Swithun, at Winchester 



70 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



(of the tenth century), furnish us with horrible pictures of the cruel 
treatment to which female slaves especially were subjected. For com- 
paratively slight offences they were loaded with gyves and fetters, and 
subjected to all kinds of tortures. Several of these are curiously illus- 
trative of domestic manners. On one occasion, the maid-servant of 
Teothic the bell-maker (campanarius) of Winchester, was, for " a slight 
offence," placed in iron fetters, and chained up by the feet and hands 
all night. Next morning she was taken out to be frightfully beaten, and 
she was put again into her bonds ; but in the ensuing night she contrived 
to make her escape, and fled to the church to seek sanctuary at the 
tomb of St Swithun, for, being in a state of servitude, there was no legal 




No. 43. — Washing and Scourging. 



protection for her. On another occasion, a female servant had been 
stolen from a former master, and had passed into the possession of 
another master in Winchester. One day her former master came to 
Winchester, and the girl, hearing of it, went to speak to him. When 
her mistress heard that she had been seen to talk with a man from a 
distant province, she ordered her to be thrown into fetters, and treated 
very cruelly. Next day, while the mistress had gone out on some busi- 



CRUELTY TO SERVANTS. 



7i 



ness, leaving her servant at home in fetters, the latter made her escape 
similarly to the sanctuary of the church. Another servant-girl in Win- 
chester, taking her master's clothes to wash in the river, was set upon 
by thieves, who robbed her of them. Her master, ascribing the mishap 
to her own negligence, beat her very severely, and then put her in fet- 
ters, from which she made her escape like the others. The interesting 
scene represented in our cut, No. 43, taken from the Harleian MS., No. 
603, fol. j 4, v°, may be regarded as showing us the scourging of a 
slave. In a picture in Alfric's version of Genesis, the man scourged, 
instead of being tied by the feet, is fixed by the body in a cloven post, 
in a rather singular manner. The aptness with which the Saxon ladies 
made use of the scourge, is illustrated by one of William of Malmesbury's 
anecdotes, who tells us that, when King Ethelred was a child, he once 
so irritated his mother, that, not having a whip, she beat him with some 
candles, which were the first thing that fell under her hand, until he was 
almost insensible. " On this account he dreaded candles during the 
rest of his life, to such a degree that he would 
never suffer the light of them to be intro- 
duced in his presence ! " 

The cruelty of the Anglo-Saxon ladies to 
their servants offers a contrast to the generally 
mild character of the punishments inflicted 
by the Anglo-Saxon laws. The laws of 
Ethelred contain the following injunction, 
showing how contrary capital punishment is to 
the spirit of Anglo-Saxon legislation : — "And 
the ordinance of our lord, and of his witan 
(parliament), is, that Christian men for all too 
little be not condemned to death; but in 
general let mild punishment be decreed, for 
the people's need; and let not for a little 
God's handywork and His own purchase be destroyed, which He dearly 
bought." This injunction is repeated in the laws of Cnut. It appears 
that the usual method of inflicting death upon criminals was by hang- 
ing. Our cut, No. 44, taken from the illuminations to Alfric's version 
of Genesis, represents an Anglo-Saxon gallows (galga), and the rather 




No. 44. — Hanging. 



72 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



primitive method of carrying the last penalty of the law into effect. 
The early illuminated manuscripts give us few representations of 
popular punishments. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies enumerate the 
following implements of punishment, besides the galga, or gallows : 
fetters {fceter, cops), distinguished into foot-fetters and hand-fetters ; 
shackles {scacul, or sceaail), which appear to have been used specially 
for the neck ; a swifta, or scourge ; ostig gyrd, a knotted rod ; tindig, 
explained by the Latin scorpio, and meaning apparently a whip with 
knots or plummets at the end of thongs, like those used by the 
charioteers in the cuts in our next chapter ; and an instrument of tor- 
ture called a threpel, which is explained by the Latin equuleus. The 
following cut, No. 45, from the Harleian MS., No. 603 (so often 
quoted), shows us the stocks, generally placed by the side of the public 
road at the entrance to the town. Two other offenders are attached to 
the columns of the public building, 
perhaps a court-house, by apparently 
a rope and a chain. The Anglo- 
Saxon laws prescribe few corporal 
punishments, but substitute for them 
the payment of fines or compensa- 
tion-money, and these are propor- 
tioned to the offences with very ■*■ 
extraordinary minuteness. Thus, to 
select a few examples from the very 

numerous list of injuries which may be done to a man's person, — if any 
one struck off an ear, he was to pay twelve shillings, and, if an eye, fifty 
shillings ; if the nose were cut through, the payment was nine shillings. 
" For each of the four front teeth, six shillings ; for the tooth which 
stands next to them, four shillings ; for that which follows, three shil- 
lings ; and for all the others, a shilling each." If a thumb were struck 
off, it was valued at twenty shillings. " If the shooting finger were struck 
off" (a term which shows how incorrectly it has been assumed that the 
Anglo-Saxons were not accustomed to the bow), the compensation was 
eight shillings ; for the middle finger, four shillings ; for the ring-finger 
six shillings ; and for the little finger, eleven shillings. The thumb-nail 
was valued at three shillings ; and the finger-nails at one shilling each. 




No. 45. — Anglo-Saxon Punishments. 



TOILETTE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 73 

We have little information on the secrets of the toilette of the Anglo- 
Saxons. We know from many sources that washing and bathing were 
frequent practices among them. The use of hot baths they probably 
derived from the Romans. The vocabularies give thermcs as the Latin 
equivalent. They are not unfrequently mentioned in the ecclesias- 
tical laws, and in the canons passed in the reign of King Edgar, warm 
baths and soft beds are proscribed as domestic luxuries which tended to 
effeminacy. If these were really the thermce, of the Romans, it was perhaps 
the hostility of the ascetic part of the Romish clergy which caused them 
to be discontinued and forgotten. Our cut No. 43 represents a party 
at their ablutions. We constantly find among the articles in the graves 
of Anglo-Saxon ladies tweezers, which were evidently intended for 
eradicating superfluous hairs, a circumstance which contributes to show 
that they paid special attention to bair-dressing. To judge from the 
colour of the hair in some of the illuminations, we might be led to sup- 
pose that sometimes they stained it. The young men seem to have \ 
been more foppish and vain of their persons than the ladies, and some 
of the old chronicles, such as the Ely history, tells us (which we should 
hardly have expected), that this was especially a characteristic of the 
Danish invaders, who, we are told, " following the custom of their 
country, used to comb their hair every day, bathed every Saturday, often 
changed their clothes, and used many other such frivolous means of- 
setting off the beauty of their persons." * 

There is every reason for believing that the Anglo-Saxon ladies were 
fond of gardens and flowers, and many allusions in the writings of that 
period intimate a warm appreciation of the beauties of nature. The 
poets not unfrequently take their comparisons from flowers. Thus, in 
a poem in the Exeter Book, a pleasant smell is described as being — 

Swecca swetast, Of odours sweetest, 

swylce on sumeres tid such as in summer's tide 

stincaft on stowum, fragrance send forth in places, 

staj>elum fseste, fast in their stations, 

wynnum sefter wongum, joyously o'er the plains, 

wyrta geblowene blown plants 

hunig-flowende. honey- flowing. — Exeter Book, "p. 178. 

* " Habebant etiam ex consuetudine patriae unoquoque die comam pectere, sabbatis 
balneare, ssepe etiam vestituram mutare, et formam corporis multis talibus frivolis ad- 
juvare." — Hist. Eliensis ap. Gale, p. 547. 



74 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



And one of the poetical riddles in the same collection contains the 
lines — 



Ic eom on stence 

strengre Jjonne ricels, 

oJ>J>e rosa sy, 

on eorJ>an tyrf 

wynlic weaxe? ; 

ic eom wrsestre J>onne heo. 

J)eah J>a lilie sy 

leof mon-cynne, 

beorht on blostman, 

ic eom betre J>onne heo. 



I am in odour 

stronger than incense, 

or the rose is, 

which on earth's turf 

pleasant grows ; 

I am more delicate than it. 

Though that the lily be 

dear to mankind, 

bright in its blossom, 

I am better than it. — Exeter 



p. 423. 



So in another of these poems we read- 



Fasger fugla reord, 
folde geblowen, 
geacas gear budon. 



Sweet was the song of birds, 

the earth was covered with flowers, 

cuckoos announced the year. — Ibid. p. 146. 



Before we quit entirely the Saxon hall, and its festivities and cere- 
monies, we must mention one circumstance connected with them. The 
laws and customs of the Anglo-Saxons earnestly enjoined the duty of 
almsgiving, and a multitude of persons partook of the hospitality of the 
rich man's mansion, who were not worthy to be admitted to his tables. 
These assembled at meal-times outside the gate of his house, and it was 
a custom to lay aside a portion of the provisions to be distributed among 
them, with the fragments from the table. In Alfric's homily for the 
second Sunday after Pentecost, the preacher, after dwelling on the story 
of Lazarus, who was spurned from the rich man's table, appeals to his 
Anglo-Saxon audience — " many Lazaruses ye have now lying at your 
gates, begging for your superfluity." Bede tells us of the good king 
Oswald, that when he was once sitting at dinner, on Easter-day, with 
his bishop, having a silver dish full of dainties before him, as they were 
just ready to bless the bread, the servant whose duty it was to relieve 
the poor, came in on a sudden and told the king that a great multitude 
of needy persons from all parts were sitting in the streets begging some 
alms of the king. The latter immediately ordered the provisions set 
before him to be carried to the poor, and the dish to be cut in pieces 
and divided among them. In the picture of a Saxon house given in 
our third chapter (p. 26), we see the lord of the household on a sort of 
throne at the entrance to his hall, presiding over the distribution of his 



ALMSGIVING. 



75 



charity. This seat, generally under an arch or canopy, is often repre- 
sented in the Saxon manuscripts, and the chief or lord seated under it, 
distributing justice or charity. In the accompanying cut, No. 46, taken 
from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius, the lady Wisdom is 
represented seated on such a throne. It was, perhaps, the burh-geat-setl, or 




No. 46. — Wisdom on her Throne. 

seat at the burh-gate, mentioned as characteristic of the rank of the 
thane in the following extract from a treatise on ranks in society, printed 
with the Anglo-Saxon laws: "And if a ceorl thrived, so that he had 
fully five hides of his own land, church (or perhaps private chapel), and 
kitchen (kycenan), bell-house, and burh-gate-seat, and special duty in 
the king's hall, then was he thenceforth worthy of the dignity of 
thane." 



CHAPTER VI. 

Out-of-door Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. — Hunting and Hawking. 
— Horses and Carriages. — Travelling. — Money-dealings. 

THE progress of society, from its first formation to the full develop- 
ment of civilisation, has been compared not inaptly to the life of 
man. In the childhood and youth of society, when the population was 
not numerous, and a servile class performed the chief part of the labour 
necessary for administering to the wants or luxuries of life, people had a 
far greater proportion of time on their hands to fill up with amusements 
than at a later period, and many that are now considered frivolous, or 
are only indulged in at rare intervals of relaxation, then formed the 
principal occupations of men's lives. We have glanced at the in-door 
amusements of the Anglo-Saxons in a previous chapter ; but their out- 
door recreations, although we have little information respecting them, 
were certainly much more numerous. The multitude of followers who, 
in Saxon times, attended on each lord or rich man as their military 
chief, or as their domestic supporter, had generally no serious occupa- 
tion during the greater part of the day ; and this abundance of unem- 
ployed time was not confined to one class of society, for the artisan 
had to work less to gain his subsistence, and both citizen and peasant 
were excused from work altogether during the numerous holidays of the 
year. 

That the Anglo-Saxons were universally fond of play (j>lega) is proved 
by the frequent use of the word in a metaphorical sense. They even 
applied it to fighting and battle, which, in the language of the poets, 
were filega-gares (play of darts), cesc-plega (play of shields), and hand- 



ANGLO-SAXON THEATRES. 



77 



plega (play of hands).* In the Glossaries, plegere (a player), and filega- 
man (a playman), are used to represent the Roman gladiator; and 
plega-hih (a playhouse), and filega-stow (a play-place), express a theatre, 
or more probably an amphitheatre. Recent discoveries have shown 
that there was a theatre of considerable dimensions in the Roman town 
of Verulamium (near St Alban's) ; a theatre is also found in the Roman 
town of Uriconium, recently opened at Wroxeter, in Shropshire ; and 




No. 47. — Games of the Amphitheatre. 



old writers tell us there was one at the Silurian Isca (Caerleon), though 
these buildings were doubtless of rare occurrence ; but every Roman 
town of any importance in the island had its amphitheatre outside the 
walls for gladiatorial and other exhibitions. The result of modern 

* It is curious that the modern English words play {plega), and game (gameii), are 
both derived from the Anglo-Saxon, which perhaps shows that they represent senti- 
ments we have derived from our Saxon forefathers. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



researches seems to prove that most of the Roman towns continued 
to exist after the Saxon settlement of the island, and we can have no 
doubt that the amphitheatres, at least for a while, continued to be 
devoted to their original purposes, although the performances were 
modified in character. Some of them (like that at Richborough, in 
Kent, lately examined) were certainly surrounded by walls, while 
others probably were merely cut in the ground, and surrounded by a 
low embankment formed of the material thrown out. The first of 
these the Saxons would naturally call a play-house, while the other 
would receive the no less appropriate appellation of a play-stow, or 
place for playing. Among the illustrations of the Anglo-Saxon manu- 
script of the Psalms (MS. Harl., No. 603), to which we have so often 
had occasion to refer, there is a very curious picture, evidently in- 
tended to represent an amphitheatre outside a town. It is copied in 
our cut, No. 47. The rude Anglo-Saxon draughtsman has evidently 
intended to represent an embankment, occupied by the spectators, 
around the spot where the performances take place. The spectator to 
the left is expressing his approbation by clapping with his hands. The 
performances themselves are singular : we have a party of minstrels, 
one of them playing on the Roman double pipes, so often represented 
in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, while another is dancing to him, and the 
third is performing with a tame bear, which is at the moment of the 
representation simulating sleep. Games of this description with 
animals, succeeded, no doubt, among the Saxons to the Roman 
gladiatorial fights, but few have imagined that the popular English 
exhibition of the dancing bear dated from so remote a period. The 
manuscripts show that the double pipe was in use among the Anglo- 
Saxons ; with a little modification, and a bag or bellows to supply the 
place of the human lungs, this instrument was transformed into a bag- 
pipe. 

Not the least curious part of this picture is the town in the back- 
ground, with its entrance gateway, and public buildings. The Anglo- 
Saxon draughtsmen were imperfectly acquainted with perspective, and 
paid little attention to proportion in their representations of towns and 
houses, a circumstance which is fully illustrated in this picture. As the 
artist was unable from this circumstance to represent the buildings and 



ANGLO-SAXON HOLIDAY GAMES. 



79 



streets of a town in their relative position, he put in a house to repre- 
sent a multitude of houses, and here he has similarly given one building 
within the walls to represent all the public buildings of the town. An 
exactly similar characteristic will be observed in our cut, No. 48, taken 
from the same manuscript, where one temple represents the town. 
Here again we have a party of citizens outside the walls, amusing 




<rr u % 



No. 48.— A Town. 



themselves as well as they can ; some, for want of other employment, 
are laying themselves down listlessly on the ground. 

The national sentiments and customs of the Anglo-Saxons would, 
however, lead to the selection of other places for the scenes of their 
games, and thus the Roman amphitheatres became neglected. Each 
village had its arena— its play-place — where persons of all ages and 
sexes assembled on their holidays to be players or lookers on; and 
this appears to have been usually chosen near a fountain, or some 
object hallowed by the popular creed, for customs of this kind were 
generally associated with religious feelings which tended to consecrate 
and protect them. These holiday games, which appear to have been 
very common among our Saxon forefathers, were the originals of our 



8o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

village wakes. Wandering minstrels, like those represented in our cut, 
No. 47, repaired to them to exhibit their skill, and were always welcome. 
The young men exerted themselves in running, or leaping, or wrestling. 
These games attracted merchants, and gradually became the centres 
of extensive fairs. Such was the case with one of the most celebrated 
fairs in England during the Middle Ages, that of Barnwell, near Cam- 
bridge. It was a large open place, between the town and the banks of 
the river, well suited for such festivities as those of which we are speak- 
ing. A spring in the middle of this plain, we are told in the early 
chartulary of Barnwell Abbey, was called Beorna-wyl (the well of the 
youths), because every year, on the eve of the Nativity of St John the 
Baptist, the boys and youths of the neighbourhood assembled there, 
and, " after the manners of the English, practised wrestling and other 
boyish games, and mutually applauded one another with songs and 
musical instruments ; whence, on account of the multitude of boys and 
girls who gathered together there, it grew a custom for a crowd of sellers 
and buyers to assemble there on the same day for the purpose of com- 
merce."* This is a curious and a rather rare allusion to an Anglo- 
Saxon wake. 

One of the great recreations of the Anglo-Saxons was hunting, for 
which the immense forests, which then covered a great portion of this 
island, gave a wide scope. The most austere and pious, as well as the 
most warlike, of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, were passionately attached 
to the pleasures of the chase. According to the writer who has assumed 
the name of Asser, the great Alfred was so attached to. this amusement, 
that he condescended to teach his " falconers, hawkers, and dog- 
keepers" himself. His grandson, King Ethelstan, as we learn from 
William of Malmesbury, exacted from the Welsh princes, among other 
articles of tribute, "as many dogs as he might choose, which, from 
their sagacious scent, could discover the retreats and hiding-places of 
wild beasts ; and birds trained to make prey of others in the air." The 
same writer tells us of the sainted Edward the Confessor, that " there 

* " Pueri et adolescentes, .... illic convenientes, more Anglorum luctamina et 
alia ludicra exercebant puerilia, et cantilenis et musicis instrumentis sibi invicem 
applaudebant, unde propter turbam puerorum et puellarum illic concurrentium, mos 
inolevit ut in eodem die illic conveniret negotiandi gratia turba vendentium et 
ementium. "— MS. Harl. No. 3601, fol. 12, v°. 



HUNTING. 8 1 



was one earthly enjoyment in which he chiefly delighted, which was 
hunting with fleet hounds, whose opening in the woods he used with 
pleasure to encourage ; and again, with the pouncing of birds, whose 
nature it is to prey on their kindred species. In these exercises, after 
hearing divine service in the morning, he employed himself whole 
days." It is evident from the ecclesiastical laws, that it was difficult to 
restrain even the clergy from this diversion. One of the ecclesiastical 
canons passed in the reign of King Edgar, enjoins "that no priest be a 
hunter, or fowler, or player at tables, but let him play on his books, as 
becometh his calling." When the king hunted, it appears that men 
were employed to beat up the game, while others were placed at differ- 
ent avenues of the forest to hinder the deer from taking a direction 
contrary to the wishes of the hunter. Several provisions relating to the 
employment of men in this way, occur in the Domesday survey. A 
contemporary writer of the Life of Dunstan gives the following descrip- 
tion of the hunting of King Edward the Elder, at Ceoddri (Chedder) : 
" When they reached the forest," he says, " they took various directions 
along the woody avenues, and the varied noise of the horns, and the 
barking of the dogs, aroused many stags. From these, the king with 
his pack of hounds chose one for his own hunting, and pursued it long, 
through devious ways, with great agility on his horse, with the hounds 
following. In the vicinity of Ceoddri were several steep and lofty pre- 
cipices hanging over deep declivities. To one of these the stag came 
in his flight, and dashed headlong to his destruction down the immense 
depth, all the dogs following and perishing with him." The king with 
difficulty held in his horse. The scene of this adventure is still well 
known to the visitors of the Somerset watering-place, Weston-Super- 
Mare. 

The dogs (hundas) used for the chase among the Anglo-Saxons, were 
valuable, and were bred with great care. Every noble or great land- 
owner had his hund-wealh, or dog-keeper. The accompanying cut 
(No. 49), taken from the Harleian MS., No. 603, represents a dog- 
keeper, with his couple of hounds — they seem to have hunted in 
couples. The Anglo-Saxon name for a hunting-dog was ren-kund, a 
dog of chase, which is interpreted by greyhound ; and this appears, 
from the cut, to have been the favourite doar of our Saxon forefathers. 




82 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

It appears, from an allusion given above, that the Anglo-Saxons obtained 
hunting-dogs from Wales ; yet the antiquary will be at once struck with 
the total dissimilarity of the dogs pictured in the Anglo-Saxon manu- 
scripts to the British dogs represented 
on the Romano-British pottery. The 
dogs were used to find the game, 
and follow it by the scent; the 
hunters killed it with spears, or with 
bows and arrows, or drove it into 
nets. In the Colloquy of Alfric, a 
hunter (kunta) of one of the royal 
forests gives a curious account of his 

No. 49. — Anglo-Saxon Dogs. 

profession. When asked how he 
practises his " craft," he replies, " I braid nets, and set them in a con- 
venient place, and set on my hounds, that they may pursue the beasts 
of chase, until they come unexpectedly to the nets, and so become in- 
tangled in them, and I slay them in the nets." He is then asked if he 
cannot hunt without nets, to which he replies, " Yes, I pursue the wild 
animals with swift hounds." He next enumerates the different kinds 
of game which the Saxon hunter usually hunted — " I take harts, and 
boars, and deer, and roes, and sometimes hares." " Yesterday," he 
continues, " I took two harts and a boar, . . . the harts with nets, and 
I slew the boar with my weapon." " How were you so hardy as to slay 
a boar?" " My hounds drove him tome, and I, there facing him, sud- 
denly struck him down." "You were very bold then." "A hunter 
must not be timid, for various wild beasts dwell in the woods." It 
would seem by this, that boar-hunting was not uncommon in the more 
extensive forests of this island ; but Sharon Turner has made a singular 
mistake, in supposing, from a picture in the Anglo-Saxon calendar, that 
boar-hunting was the ordinary occupation of the month of September. 
The scene which he has thus mistaken — or at least, a portion of it — is 
given in our cut, No. 50 (from the Cottonian MS. Claudius, C. viii.) ; it 
represents swineherds driving their swine into the forests to feed upon 
acorns, which one of the herdsmen is shaking from the trees with his 
hand. The herdsmen were necessarily armed to protect the herds 
under their charge against robbers. 



HA WRING. 



83 



The Anglo-Saxons, as we have seen, were no less attached to hawking 
than to hunting. The same Colloquy already quoted contains the fol- 
lowing dialogue relating to the fowler (fugelere). To the question, 




No. 50. — Swineherds. 

" How dost thou catch birds ? " he replies, " I catch them in many 
ways; sometimes with nets, sometimes with snares, sometimes with 
bird-lime, sometimes with whistling, sometimes with a hawk, sometimes 
with a trap." " Hast thou a hawk ? " "I have." " Canst thou tame 
them ? " " Yes, I can ; of what use would they be to me unless I could 
tame them?" " Give me a hawk." " I will give one willingly in ex- 
change for a swift hound. What kind of hawk will you have, the 
greater or the lesser?'' . . . "How feedest thou thy hawks ?" " They 




No. 51. — Anglo-Saxons Hawking. 

feed themselves and me in winter, and in spring I let them fly to the 
wood, and I catch young ones in autumn and tame them." A party of 
hawkers is represented in our cut No. 5 1, taken from the manuscript 
last quoted, where it illustrates the month of October. This rude 
attempt at depicting a landscape is intended to represent a river run- 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



ning from the distant hills into a lake, and the hawkers are hunting 
cranes and other water-fowl. Presents of hawks and falcons are not 
unfrequently mentioned in Anglo-Saxon writers; and in a will, an 
Anglo-Saxon leaves to his natural lord " two hawks and all his stag- 
hounds." 

The Saxon youths were proud of their skill in horsemanship. Bede 
relates an anecdote of the youthful days of Herebald, Abbot of Tyne- 
mouth, when he attended upon Bishop John of Beverley, from Here- 
bald's own words : — "It happened one day," the latter said, "that as 
we were travelling with him (the bishop), we came into a plain and 
open road, well adapted for galloping our horses. The young men that 
were with him, and particularly those of the laity, began to entreat 

the bishop to give them leave to 
gallop, and make trial of the goodness 

of their horses When they had 

several times galloped backwards and 
forwards, the bishop and I looking on, 
my wanton humour prevailed, and I 
could no longer refrain j but, though 
he forbade me, I struck in among them, 
and began to ride at full speed." 
Horses were used chiefly by the upper 
classes of society in travelling. Two 
of a party of Saxon travellers are repre- 




No. 52. — Anglo-Saxons on a Journey. 



sented in our cut No. 52 (from MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv.) The 
\ lady, it will be observed, rides sideways, as in modern times, and the 
illuminated manuscripts of different periods furnish us with examples 
enough to show that such was always the practice ; yet an old writer 
has ascribed the introduction of side-saddles into this country to Anne 
of Bohemia, the queen of Richard II., and the statement has been 
repeated by writers on costume, who too often blindly compile from one 
another without examining carefully the original sources of information.* 



* This erroneous statement is repeated by most of our writers on such subjects, and 
will be found in Mr Planche's " History of British Costume." Statements of this kind 
made by old writers are seldom to be depended upon ; people were led by political 
bias or personal partiality, to ascribe the introduction of customs that were odious, to 



HORSE FITTINGS AND VEHICLES. 



85 




The next cut, No. 53 (taken from MS. Had., No. 603), represents a 
horseman with his arms, the spear, and the round shield, with its boss, 
which reminds us of those frequently found in the early Anglo-Saxon 
graves. The horse furniture 
is tolerably well defined in 
these figures. The forms of 
the spur (spura) and the stir- 
rup (called in Anglo-Saxon 
stirap and hylfia) are very 
peculiar. Most of the furni- 
ture of the horse was then, as 
now, of leather, and was made 

■l ,1 1 i / No. S3- — An Anglo-Saxon Horseman. 

by the shoemaker (se sceo- 

wyrhta), who seems to have been the general manufacturer of articles 
in this material. Alfric's Colloquy enumerates among the articles made 
by the shoemaker, bridle-thongs (bridel-thwancgas), harnesses (gerceda), 
spur-leathers (sfiur-lethera), and halters 
(Jicelfrd). The form of the saddle is 
shown in the representation of a horse 
without a rider, given, from the manu- 
script last quoted, in our cut, No. 54. 
In the Anglo-Saxon church histories, 
we meet with frequent instances of 
persons, who were unable to walk 

from Sickness Or Other Cause, being Na 54--Anglo-Saxon Horse Fittings. 

carried in. carts or cars, but in most cases these seem to have been 
nothing but the common agricultural carts adapted temporarily to this 
usage. A horse-litter is on one occasion used for the same purpose. 
It is certain, however, that the Anglo-Saxons had chariots for travelling. 
The usual names of all vehicles of this kind were wcegn or ween (from 
which, our waggon) and crat or crcet (which appears to be the origin of 
the English word cart). These two terms appear to have been used 
synonymously, for the words of the 18th Psalm, hi in curribus, are 
translated in one Anglo-Saxon version by on wcenum, and in another by 

persons who were unpopular, or whom they disliked, while they ascribed everything 
of a contrary character to persons who were beloved. 




86 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



in crcetum. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts give us various representa- 
tions of vehicles for travelling. The one represented below in the cut 
No. 55 is taken from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius. It 
seems to have been a barbaric " improvement " upon the Roman biga, 
and is not much unlike our modern market carts. The whip used by- 




No. 55. — A Chariot. 

the lady who is driving so furiously, is of the same form as that used 
by the horsewoman in our cut, No. 52. The artist has not shown the 
wcBgne-thixl, or shaft. A four-wheeled carriage, of rather a singular 
construction, is found often repeated, with some variations, in the illu- 
minations of the manuscript of Al- 
fric's translation of the Pentateuch. 
One of them is given in our cut, 
No. 56. It is quite evident that 
a good deal of the minor detail of 
construction has been omitted by 
the draughtsman. Anglo-Saxon 
glosses give the word rad to repre- 
sent the Latin quadriga. From the 
same source we learn that the com- 
pound word wcen-fcer, waggon-going, was used to express journeying 
in chariots. 

Riding in chariots must have been rare among the Anglo-Saxons. 
Horses were only used by the better classes of society ; and we learn 
from Bede and other writers that pious ecclesiastics, such as Bishops 




No. 56. — An Anglo-Saxon Carriage. 



PRECAUTIONS IN TRAVELLING. 87 

Aidan, Ceadda, and Cuthbert, thought it more consistent with the 
humility of their sacred character to journey on foot. The pedestrian 
carried either a spear or a staff; the rider had almost always a spear. 
It is noted of Cuthbert, in Bede's life of that saint, that one day when 
he came to Mailros (Melrose), and would enter the church to pray, 
having leaped from his horse, he "gave the latter and his travelling 
spear to the care of a servant, for he had not yet resigned the dress 
and habits of a layman." The weapon was, no doubt, necessary for 
personal safety. There is a very curious clause in the Anglo-Saxon 
laws of King Alfred, relating to an accident arising from carrying the 
spear, which we can hardly understand, although to require a special 
law it must have been of frequent occurrence ; this law provides that 
"if a man have a spear over his shoulder, and any man stake himself 
upon it" the carrier of the spear incurred severe punishment, "if the 
point be three fingers higher than the hindmost part of the shaft." He 
was not considered blameable if he held the spear quite horizon- 
tally. 

The traveller always wore a covering for his head, which, though 
of various shapes, none of which resembled our modern hat, was char- 
acterised by the general term of hcet. He seems to have been further 
protected against the inclemency of the weather by a cloak or mantle 
(inentel). One would be led to suppose that this outer garment was 
more varied in form and material than any other part of the dress, 
from the great number of names which we find applied to it, such as 
basing, hcecce, hcecela or hacela, ficell, fiylca, scyccels, wcefels, &c. The 
writings which remain throw no light upon the provisions made by 
travellers against rain ; for the dictionary-makers who give scitr-scead 
(shower- shade) as signifying an umbrella, are certainly mistaken.* Yet 
that umbrellas were known to the Anglo-Saxons is proved beyond a 
doubt by a figure in the Harleian manuscript, No. 603, which is given 



* The word occurs in the reflections of our first parents on their nakedness, in the 
poem attributed to Casdmon. Adam says that when the inclement weather arrives 
(cymeft kaglts scur — the hail shower will come) they had nothing before them to serve 
for a defence or shade against the storm — 

" Nys unc wuht beforan 
to scur sceade." 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




No. 57. — An Anglo- 
Saxon Umbrella. 



in our cut, No. 57. A servant or attendant is holding an umbrella 
over the head of a man who appears to be covered at the same time 
with the cloak or mantle. 

Travelling to any distance must have been rendered more uncom- 
fortable, especially when passing through wild dis- 
tricts, by the want of inns. The word inn is itself 
Saxon, and signified a lodging, but it appears to 
have been more usually applied to houses of this 
kind in towns. A tavern was also called a gest- 
hus or gest-bur, a house or chamber for guests, and 
cumena-hns, a house of comers. Guest-houses, like 
caravanserais in the East, appear to have been estab- 
lished in different parts of Saxon England, near the 
high roads, for the reception of travellers. A traveller in Bede arrives 
at a hospiiium in the north of England, which was kept by %. fiatei'f ami- 
lias (or father of a family) and his household. In the Northumbrian 
gloss on the Psalms, printed by the Surtees Society, the Latin words of 
Psalm liv., in hosfiitiis eorum are rendered by in gest-hustwi heora. This 
shows that Bede's hosfiitium was really a guest-house. These guest-houses 
were kept up in various parts of England until Norman times; and 
Walter Mapes, in his treatise de Nugis Curialium, has preserved a story 
relating to one of William the Conqueror's Saxon opponents, Edric 
the Wild, which tells how, returning from hunting in the forest of Dean, 
and accompanied only by a page, he came to a large house, " like the 
drinking houses of which the English have one in every parish, called 
in English gild-houses," perhaps an error for guest-houses (quales An- 
glici in singulis singulas habebant diocesibus bibitorias, ghildhus Anglice 
didas). It seems not improbable, also, that the ruins of Roman villas 
and small stations, which stood by the sides of roads, were often 
roughly repaired or modified, so as to furnish a temporary shelter for 
travellers who carried provisions, &c, with them, and could therefore 
lodge themselves without depending upon the assistance of others. 
A shelter of this kind — from its consisting of bare walls, a mere shelter 
against the inclemency of the storm — might be termed a ceald-hereberga 
(cold harbour), and this would account for the great number of places 
in different parts of England which bear this name, and which are 



OBSERVANCE OF HOSPITALITY. 



almost always on Roman sites and near old roads. The explanation 
is supported by the circumstance that the name is found among the 
Teutonic nations on the Continent — the German Kalten-herberg — as 
given to some inns at the present day. 

The deficiency of such comforts for travellers in Anglo-Saxon times 
was compensated by the extensive practice of hospitality, a virtue which 
was effectually inculcated by the customs of the people as well as by 
the civil and ecclesiastical laws. When a stranger presented himself at 
a Saxon door, and asked for board and lodging, the man who refused 
them was looked upon with contempt by his countrymen. In the 
seventh century, as we learn from the Pcenitentiale of Archbishop 
Theodore, the refusal to give lodging to a stranger (quiamque hospitem 
11011 receferit in domain suani) was considered worthy of ecclesiastical 
censure. And in the Ecclesiastical Institutes, drawn up at a later 
period, and printed in the collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, it is stated 
that " It is also very needful to every mass-priest, that he diligently 
exhort and teach his parishioners that they be hospitable, and refuse 
not their houses to any wayfaring man, but do for his comfort, for love 
of God, what they then will or can ; . . . but let those who, for love 
of God, receive every stranger, desire not any worldly reward." Bede 
describes as the first act of "the custom of hospitality" (inos hosfiitali- 
tatis) the washing of the stranger's feet and hands ; they then offered 
him refreshment, and he was allowed to remain two nights without 
being questioned, after which period the host became answerable for 
his character. The ecclesiastical laws limited the hospitality to be . 
shown to a priest to one night, because if he remained longer it was a | 
proof that he was neglecting his duties. 

Taverns of an ordinary description, where there was probably no \ 
accommodation for travellers, seem to have been common enough 
under the Anglo-Saxons ; and it must be confessed that there seems to 
be too much reason for believing that people spent a great deal of their 
leisure time in them ; even the clergy appear to have been tempted to 
frequent them. In the Ecclesiastical Institutes, quoted above, mass- 
priests are forbidden to eat or drink at ale-houses [cet ceap-ealothehmi). 
And it is stated in the same curious record that, " It is a very bad 
custom that many men practise, both on Sundays and also other mass- 



9Q THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

days; that is, that straightways at early morn they desire to hear 
mass, and immediately after the mass, from early morn the whole day 
over, in drunkenness and feasting they minister to their belly, not to 
God." 

Merchant travellers seem, in general, to have congregated together 
in parties or small caravans, both for companionship and as a measure 
of mutual defence against robbers.* In such cases they probably 
carried tents with them, and formed little encampments at night, like 
the pedlars and itinerant dealers in later times. Men who travelled 
alone were exposed to other dangers besides that of robbery ; for a 
solitary wanderer was always looked upon with suspicion, and he was 
in danger himself of being taken for a thief. He was compelled, there- 
fore, by his own interest and by the law of the land, to show that he 
had no wish to avoid observation. One of the earlier Anglo-Saxon 
codes of laws, that of King Wihtraed, directed that " if a man come 
from afar, or a stranger go out of the highway, and he then neither 
shout nor blow a horn, he is to be accounted a thief, either to be slain, 
or to be redeemed." 

So prevalent, indeed, were theft and unfair dealing among our 
Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and so much litigation and unjust persecution 
arose from disputed claims to property which had been, or was pre- 
tended to have been, purchased, that it was made illegal to buy or sell 
without witnesses. It would be easy to multiply examples of robbery 
and plunder from Anglo-Saxon writers; but I will only state that, 
according to the Ely history, some merchants from Ireland, having 
come to Cambridge in the time of King Edgar, to offer their wares for 
sale, perhaps at the annual festivities of the Eeorna-wyl, mentioned 
above, a priest of the place was guilty of stealing a part of their 
merchandise. We know but little of the trades and forms of com- 
mercial dealings of the Anglo-Saxons ; but we may take our leave of 

* The memory of this practice of travelling in company was preserved down to a 
late period. Men with whom I have conversed remembered the time, probably the 
earlier part of the present century, when people entering London from Kensington 
were detained at Kensington Gate until a sufficient number had collected to be able 
to defend themselves against the highwaymen who then infested the Kensington 
Road. There was a bell at the gate, which was rung when a sufficient number had 
assembled, and they were then allowed to proceed into the town. 



MONEY DEALINGS. 



9i 



the period of which we have been hitherto treating, with a few figures 
relating to money matters, from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the 
Psalms (MS. Harl., No. 603). The cut, No. 58, represents, apparently, 




No. 58.— Taking Toll. 

a man in the market, or at the gates of a city, taking toll for mer- 
chandise. The scales are for weighing, not the merchandise, but the 
money. The word finnd, or pound, implied that the money was 
reckoned by weight ; and the word mancus, another term for a certain 
sum of money, is also considered to have. been a weight. Anglo-Saxon 
writings frequently speak of money as given by weight. Our cut, No. 





No. 59.— A Money Taker. 



No. 60. — Putting Treasure by. 



59, is a representation of the merchant, or the toll-taker, seated before 
his account-book, with his scales hanging to the desk. In the first of 
these cuts,' a man holds the bag or purse, in which the money received 
for toll or merchandise is deposited. The cut, No. 60, represents the 
receiver pouring the money out of his bag into the cyst, or chest, in 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



which it is to be locked up and kept in his treasury. It is hardly 
necessary to say that there were no banking-houses among the Anglo- 
Saxons. The chest, or coffer, in which people kept their money and 
other valuables, appears to have formed part of the furniture of the 
chamber, as being the most private apartment; and it may be remarked 
that a rich man's wealth usually consisted much more in jewels and 
valuable plate than in money. 

. We cannot but remark how little change the manners and the senti- 
ments of our Saxon forefathers underwent during the long period that 
we are in any way acquainted with them. During the reign of Edward 
the Confessor, Norman fashions were introduced at court, but their 
influence on the nation at large appears to have been very slight. 
Even after the Norman Conquest the English manners and fashions 
retained their hold on the people, and at later periods they continually 
re-appear to assert their natural rights among the descendants of the 
Anglo-Saxons. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Early Norman Period. — Luxuriousness of the Normans. — Advance 
in Domestic Architecture. — The Kitchen and the Hall. — Provisions 
and Cookery. — Bees. — The Dairy. — Meal-times and Divisions of the 
Day. — Furniture. — The Faldestol. — Chairs and other Seats. 

A GREAT change was wrought in this country by the entrance of 
the Normans. From what we have seen, in the course of the 
preceding chapters, society seems for a long time to have been at a 
stand among the Anglo-Saxons, as though it had progressed as far as 
its own simple vitality would carry it, and wanted some new impulse 
to move it onwards. By the entrance of the Normans, the Saxon 
aristocracy was destroyed ; but the lower and, in a great measure, the 
middle classes were left untouched in their manners and customs, 
which they appear to have preserved for a considerable length of time 
without any material change. The Norman historians, who write with 
prejudice when they speak of the Saxons, describe their nobility as 
having become luxurious without refinement ; and they tell us that the 
Normans introduced greater sobriety, accompanied with more ostenta- 
tion. " The nobility," says William of Malmesbury, " was given up to 
luxury and wantonness. . . . Drinking in parties was an universal 
practice, in which occupation they passed entire nights as well as days. 
They consumed their whole substance in mean and despicable houses ; 
unlike the Normans and French, who, in noble and splendid mansions, 
lived with frugality. The vices attendant on drunkenness, which 
enervate the human mind, followed. ... In fine, the English at that 
time (under King Harold) wore short garments, reaching to the mid- 
knee ; they had their hair cropped, their beards shaven, their arms 



94 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



laden with golden bracelets, their skin adorned with punctured designs ; 
they were accustomed to eat till they became surfeited, and to drink 
till they were sick. These latter qualities they imparted to their con- 
querors ; whose manners, in other respects, they adopted." 

Whatever moderation the Normans may have brought with them, or 
however they may have been restrained by the first Anglo-Norman 
monarch, it disappeared entirely under his son and successor : when, 
in the words of William of Malmesbury, " everything was so changed, 
that there was no man rich except the money-changer, and no clerks 
but lawyers. . . . The courtiers then preyed upon the property of the 
country people, and consumed their substance, taking the very meat 
from their mouths. Then was there flowing hair and extravagant 
dress ; and then was invented "the fashion of shoes with curved points ; 
then the model for young men was to rival women in delicacy of per- 
son, to mince their gait, to walk with loose gesture, and half naked." 
This increasing dissoluteness of manners appears to have received no 
effectual check under the reign of the first Henry ; in the twenty-ninth 
year of which, the writer just quoted tells us that " a circumstance 
occurred in England, which may seem surprising to our long-haired 
gallants, who, forgetting what they were born, transform themselves 
into the fashion of females, by the length of their locks. A certain 
English knight, who prided himself on the luxuriance of his tresses, 
being conscience-stung on the subject, seemed to feel in a dream as 
though some person strangled him with his ringlets. Awaking in a 
fright, he immediately cut off all his superfluous hair. The example 
spread throughout England ; and, as recent punishment is apt to affect 
the mind, almost all the barons allowed their hair to be cropped in a 
proper manner, without reluctance. But this decency was not of long 
continuance ; for scarcely had a year expired, before all those who 
thought themselves courtly, relapsed into their former vice ; they vied 
with women in length of locks, and wherever these were wanting, put 
on false tresses ; forgetful, or rather ignorant, of the saying of the 
Apostle, ' If a man nurture his hair, it is a shame to him.' " Public 
and private manners were gradually running into the terrible lawless- 
ness of the reign of King Stephen. 

William of Malmesbury points out as one of the more remarkable 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 



95 



circumstances which distinguished the Normans from the Saxons, the 
magnitude and solidity of their domestic buildings. The Anglo-Saxons 
seem, indeed, to have preserved the old national prejudice of their race 
against confining themselves within stone walls, while the Normans and 
Franks, who were more influenced by Roman traditions, had become 
great builders. The old " home " was gone, and a new one had come 
in its place. We have scarcely any information relative to the progress 
of domestic architecture under William the Conqueror, but the Norman 
chiefs seem from the first to have built themselves houses of a much 
more substantial character than those which they found in existence. 
The residence of the Conqueror, while engaged in his operations against 
the insurgents in the Isle of Ely, is imperfectly described by the anony- 
mous author of the Life of Hereward. It consisted of the hall, kitchen, 
and other buildings, which were enclosed by hedges and fosses (per 
sepes et foveas), which indeed, as we have seen, was the case with 
the Anglo-Saxon houses, and it had an interior and exterior court. 
Towards the end of the Conqueror's reign, and in that of his son, were 
raised those early Norman baronial castles, the masonry of which has 
withstood the ravages of so many centuries. Under William and his 
sons, few ordinary mansions and dwelling-houses seem to have been 
built substantially of stone ; I am not aware that there are any known 
remains of a stone mansion in this country older than the reign of 
Henry II., which is the date of Stokesay in Shropshire. The miracles of 
St Cuthbert, related by Reginald of Durham, contain one or two allu- 
sions to the private houses of the earlier part of the twelfth century. 
Thus a parishioner of Kellow, near Durham, in the time of Bishop 
Walter Rufus (1133-1140), is described as passing the evening drinking 
with the parish priest ; returning home late, he was pursued by dogs, 
and reaching his own house in great terror, contrived to shut the door 
{ostium domus) upon them. He then went up to what, from the con- 
text, appears to have been the window of an upper floor or garret (ad 
fenestram parietis), which he opened in order to look down with safety 
on his persecutors. He was suddenly seized with madness, and his 
family being roused, seized him, carried him down into the court (in 
area), and bound him to the seats {ad sedilia). The same writer tells 
the story of a blind woman in the city of Durham, who used to run her 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



head against the projecting windows of the houses (ad fenestrarum 
defiendentia foris laquearid). 

We trace in the illuminations of the earlier Norman period the cus- 
tom of placing the principal apartment at an elevation from the ground. 
The simple plan of the stone-built house of the latter part of this 
century, consisted of a square room on the ground floor, often vaulted, 
and of one roof above it, which was the principal apartment, and the 
sleeping room. This was approached by a staircase, sometimes ex- 
ternal and sometimes internal, and it had a fire-place (chemmee), though 
this was not always the case in the room below. The lower room was 
the hall, and the upper apartment was called a solar, or sotter (solarium), 
a word which has been supposed to be derived from sol, the sun, which 
was more felt in this upper room than in the lower, inasmuch as it was 
better lighted — it was the sunny room. Yet, even here, the windows 
were small, and without glass. We learn from Joscelin de Brakelonde 
that, in the year 1182, Samson, Abbot of Bury, while lodging in a 
grange, or manor-house, belonging to his abbey, narrowly escaped 
being burnt with the house, because the only door of the upper story 
in which he was lodged happened to be locked, and the windows were 
too narrow to admit of his passing through them. In the early Eng- 
lish " Ancren Riewle," or rule of nuns, published by the Camden 
Society, there are several allusions to the windows of the parlour, or 
private room, which show that they were not glazed, but usually 
covered with a cloth, or blind, which allowed sufficient light to pass, 
and that they had shutters on hinges which closed them entirely. In 
talking of the danger of indulging the eyes, the writer of this treatise 
(p. 50) says, " My dear sisters, love your windows" — they are called in 
the original text thurles, holes through the wall — " as little as you may, 
and let them be small, and those of the parlour least and narrowest ; 
let the cloth in them be twofold, black cloth, the cross white within 
and without." The writer goes on to moralise on the white cross upon 
a black ground. In another part of the book (p. 97), the author sup- 
poses that men may come and seek to converse with the nuns through 
the window, and goes on to say, " If any man become so mad and 
unreasonable that he put forth his hand towards the window-cloth {the 
thurl-clotli), shut the window quickly and leave him." Under the hall, 



NORMAN DWELLINGS. 



97 



when it was raised above the level of the ground, there was often 
another vaulted room, which was the cellar, and which seems to have 
been usually entered from the inside of the building. In the accom- 
panying cut (No. 61), taken from the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, 
are seen Harold and his companions carousing in an apartment thus 
situated, and approached by a staircase from without. The object of 
this was, perhaps, partly to be more private, for the ordinary public 
hall at dinner time seems to have been invaded by troops of hungry 




No. 61. — A Norman Carousal. 



hangers-on, who ate up or carried away the provisions which were 
taken from the table, and became so bold that they seem to have often 
seized or tried to seize the provisions from the cooks as they carried 
them to the table. William Rufus established ushers of the hall and 
kitchen, whose duty it was to protect the guests and the cooks from 
this rude rabble. Gaimar's description of that king's grand feast at 
Westminster contains some curious allusions to this practice. After 
telling us that three hundred ushers (ussers, i.e. huissiers), or door- 
keepers, were appointed to occupy the entrance passages (us), who 
were to stand with rods to protect the guests as they mounted the steps, 
from the importunity of the garsons, he goes on — 

Cil cunduaient les bai - ons 

Par les degrez, pur les garcons ; 



9 8 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Od les verges k'es mains teneient 
As barons vaie fesaient, 
Ke ja garcon ne s'apremast, 
Si alcon d'els ne l'comandast, — 

he adds, that those who carried the provisions and liquor to the table 
were also attended by these ushers, that the " lecheurs" might not 
snatch from them, or spoil, or break, the vessels in which they 
carried them : — 

Ensement tut revenaient par els 

Cil ki aportouent les mes 

De la quisine e des mesters, 

E li beveres e li mangers, 

Icil usser les cunduaient, 

Pur la vessele dunt servaient, 

Ke lecheur ne les eschecast, 

Ne malmeist, ne defrussast. 

— Gaimar, Estorie des Engles, 1. 5985. 




No. 62. — The Norman Butler in his Office. 

In the cut from the Bayeux tapestry, the feasting-room is approached 
by what is evidently a staircase of stone. In our next cut, No. 62, taken 
from a manuscript of the earlier half of the twelfth century in the Cot- 
tonian library (Nero, C. iv.), and illustrating the story of the marriage 
feast at Cana, the staircase is apparently of wood, little better than a 



NORMAN KITCHENS. 



99 




ladder, and the servants who are carrying up the wine assist them- 
selves in mounting by means of a rope. It is a picture which at the 
same time exhibits several characteristics of do- 
mestic life — the wine-vessels, the cupboard in 
which they are kept, and the well in the court-yard, 
the latter being indicated by the tree. The butler, 
finding wine run short, sends the servant to draw 
water from the well. It may be remarked that 
this appears to have been the common machinery 
of the draw-well among our forefathers in the 
Middle Ages — a rude lever, formed by the attach- 
ment • of a heavy weight, perhaps of lead, at one 
end of the beam, which was sufficient to raise 
the other end, and thus draw up the bucket. No - 6 3— A Draw-Weil. 
It occurs in illuminations in manuscripts of various periods ; our 
example in > cut No. 63 is taken from MS. Harl. No. 1257, of the 
fourteenth century. 

Whatever truth there may be in William of Malmesbury's account of 
the sobriety of the Normans, there can be no doubt that the kitchen 
and the cooks formed with them a very important part of the house- 
hold. According to the Bayeux tapestry, Duke William brought with him 
from Normandy a complete kitchen establishment, and a compartment 
of that interesting monument, of which we give a diminished copy in the 
next page, shows that when he landed he found no difficulty in provid- 
ing a dinner. On the left two cooks are boiling the meat — for this 
still was the general way of cooking it, as it was usually salted. Above 
them, on a shelf, are fowls, and other descriptions of small viands, 
spitted ready for roasting. Another cook is engaged at a portable 
stove, preparing small cakes, pasties, &c, which he takes from the 
stove with a singularly formed fork to place them on the dish. 
Others are carrying to the table the roasted meats on the spits. It 
will be observed that having no " board " with them to form a table, 
the Norman knights here make use of their shields instead. 

The reader of the Life of Hereward will remember the scene in which 
the hero in disguise is taken into King William's kitchen, to entertain 
the cooks. After dinner the wine and ale were distributed freely, and 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the result was a violent quarrel between the cooks and Hereward ; the 
former used the tridents and forks for weapons {cum tridentibus etfurcis), 
while he took the spit from the fire (defoco hastile), as a still more for- 
midable weapon of defence. In the early Chanson de Roland, Charle- 
magne is described also as carrying his cooks with him to the war, as 




No. 64. — Norman Cooks and 



William the Conqueror is pictured in the Bayeux tapestry; and they held 
so important a position in his household, that, when one of his most 
powerful barons, Guenelon, was accused of treason, Charlemagne is 
made to deliver him in custody to the charge of his cooks, who place 
him under the guard of a hundred of the "kitchen companions," and 
these treat him much in the same way as King William's cooks sought to 
treat Hereward, by cutting off or plucking out his beard and whiskers. 



Li reis fait prendre le cunte Guenelun, 

Si l'cumandat as cous de sa maisun, 

Tut li plus maistre en apelet Besgun : 

' Ben le me guarde, si cume tel felon, 

De ma maisn6e ad faite traisun.' 

Cil le receit, si met c. cumpaignons 

De la quisine, des mielz e des pejurs ; 

Icil li peilent la barbe e les gernuns. — Chanson de Roland, p. 71. 

Alexander Neckam, in his Dictionarius (written in the latter part of 
the twelfth century), begins with the kitchen, as though he considered 
it as the most important part of a mansion, and he describes its furni- 
ture rather minutely. There is good reason, however, for believing that 
the cooking was very commonly performed in the court of the house in 



NORMAN DINNER-TABLES. 



101 



the open air, and perhaps it was intended to be represented so in the 
scene given here from the Bayeux tapestry. The cooks are there de- 
livering the food through a door into the hall. 

The Norman dinner-table, as shown in the Bayeux tapestry, differs 
not much from that of the Anglo-Saxons. A few dishes and basins 




MHMMA 



the Attendants serving; at Table. 



contain viands which are not easy to be recognised, except the fish and 
the fowls. Most of the smaller articles seem to have been given by 
the cooks into the hands of the guests from the spits on which they had 




No. 65. — An Anglo-Saxon Dinner Party. 



been roasted. Another dinner scene is represented in our cut No. 
65, taken from the Cottonian manuscript already mentioned (Nero, C. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



iv.) We see again similarly formed vessels to those used at table by 
the Anglo-Saxons. The bread is still made in round flat cakes, and is 
marked with a cross, and with a flower in the middle. The guests use 
no forks ; their knives are different and more varied in their forms than 
under the Anglo-Saxons. Sometimes, indeed, the shape of the knives 
is almost grotesque. The one represented below, in our cut, No. 66, 
is taken from a group in the same manuscript which furnished the pre- 
ceding cut j it is very singularly notched at the point. 

We see in these dinner scenes that the Anglo-Normans used horns 
and cups for drinking, as the Anglo-Saxons had done ; but the use of 
the horn is becoming more rare, and the bowl-shaped vessel appears to 
have been now the usual drinking-cup. Among the wealthy these cups 
seem to have been made of glass. Reginald of 
Durham describes one of the monks as bringing 
water for a sick man to drink in a glass cup (vase 
vitred), which was accidentally broken. In a 
splendidly illuminated manuscript of the Psalms, 
of the earlier half of the twelfth century, written by Eadwine, one of 
the monks of Canterbury, — which will afford much illustration for 



No. 66.— A Knife. 





No. 67. — A Cup-bearer. 



No. 68.— The Servant in the Cellar. 



this period,* — we find a figure of a servant going to drink, who holds 
one of the same description of drinking-cups which were so popular at 
an earlier period among the Anglo-Saxons (see our cut No. 67). He 

* This valuable MS. is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It 
is a very remarkable circumstance that the illuminations are in general copies from 
those of the Harleian MS. No. 603, except that the costume and other circumstances 
are altered, so that we may take them as correct representations of the manners of the 
Anglo-Normans. 



NORMAN WINE AND WINE CUPS. 



103 




No. 69. — Anglo-Norman Pottery. 



holds in the left hand the jug, which had now become the usual vessel 
for carrying the liquor in any quantity. In our cut, No. 68, furnished 
by the same manuscript as the preceding, the servant is taking the jug 
of liquor from the barrel. Our next cut, No. 69, also taken from the 
Cambridge MS., represents several forms of vessels for the table. 
Some of these are new to us ; and they 
are on the whole more elegant than most 
of the forms we meet with in common 
pictures. 

Wine appears to have been now more 
frequently used than among the Anglo- 
Saxons. Neckam, in the latter part of 
the twelfth century, has given us a rather 
playful enumeration of the qualities of 
good wine ; which he says should be as 
clear as the tears of a penitent, so that a man may see distinctly to the 
bottom of his glass ; its colour " should represent the greenness of a 
buffalo's horn; when drunk, it should descend impetuously like thunder, 
sweet-tasted as an almond, creeping like a squirrel, leaping like a roe- 
buck, strong like the building of a Cistercian monastery, glittering like 
a spark of fire, subtle as the logic of the schools of Paris, delicate as 
fine silk, and colder than crystal." Yet, as we have seen before, the 
English wines appear to have been generally of an inferior quality, and 
ale and mead still continued to be the usual drinks. The innumerable 
entries in Domesday Book show us how large a proportion of the pro- 
ductions of the country, in the reign of William the Conqueror, still 
consisted in honey, which was used chiefly for the manufacture of 
mead. The manuscript in Trinity College 
Library gives us a group of bee-hives (cut 
No. 70), with peasants attending to them; 
and is chiefly curious for the extraordinary 
forms which the artist, evidently no nat- 
uralist, has given to the bees. 

We have hardly any information on 
the cookery of the period we are now 
describing. It is clear that numerous delicacies were served to the 




No. 70. — Anglo-Norman Bee-keepers. 



io4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

tables of the noble and wealthy, but their culinary receipts are not 
preserved. We read in William of Malmesbury, incidentally, that a 
great prince ate garlick with a goose, from which we are led to suppose 
that the Normans were fond of highly-seasoned dishes. Neckam tells 
us that pork, roasted or broiled on red embers, required no other sauce 
than salt or garlick; that a capon done in gobbets should be well 
peppered ; that a goose, roasted on the spit, required a strong garlick- 
sauce, mixed with wine or " the green juice of grapes or crabs ; " that 
a hen, if boiled, should be cut up and seasoned with cummin, but, if 
roasted, it should be basted with lard, and might be seasoned with 
garlick-sauce, though it would be more savoury with simple sauce; 
that fish should be cooked in a sauce composed of wine and water, and 
that they should afterwards be served with a sauce composed of sage, 
parsley, cost, ditany, wild thyme, and garlick, with pepper and salt. 
We learn from other incidental allusions of contemporary, or nearly 
contemporary, writers, that bread, butter, and cheese, were the ordinary 
food of the common people, probably with little else but vegetables. 
It is interesting to remark that the three articles just mentioned have 
preserved their Anglo-Saxon names to the present times, while all kinds 
of meat, beef, veal, mutton, pork, even bacon, have retained only the 
names given to them by the Normans, which seems to imply that 
flesh-meat was not, during the Norman period, in general use for food 
among the lower classes of society. 

Bread seems almost always to have been formed in cakes, like our 
buns, round in the earlier pictures, and in later ones (as in our cut, No. 
69) shaped more fancifully. We see it generally marked with a cross, 
perhaps a superstitious precaution of the baker.* The bread seems to 
have been in general made for the occasion, and eaten fresh, perhaps 
warm. In one of Reginald of Durham's stories, we are told of a priest 
in the forest of Arden, who, having nothing but a peck of corn left, 
and receiving a large number of visitors on a sacred festival, gave it 
out to be baked to provide for them. The corn was immediately 
ground, perhaps with querns, and having been mixed with "dewy" 
water, in the usual manner, was made into twelve loaves, and im- 

* It remains still the practice in some parts of France (in Normandy, for instance), 
before cutting a loaf, to make a cross upon it with the point of the knife. 



EARLY RISING AMONG THE NORMANS. 



105 



mediately placed in the hot oven.* Cheese and butter seem also to 
have been tolerably abundant. An illumination of the Cambridge 
MS., given in our cut No. 71, represents a man milking and another 




No. 71. — Anglo-Normans Milking and Churning. 

churning; he who churns appears, to use a vulgar phrase, to be " taking 
it at his ease." The milking-pail, too, is rather extraordinary in its 
form. 

We have not any distinct account of the hours at which our Norman 
ancestors took their meals, but they appear to have begun their day 
early. In the Carlovingian romances, everybody, not excepting the 
emperor and his court, rises at daybreak ; and in Huon de Bordeaux 
(p. 270), one of the chief heroes is accused of laziness, because he was 
in bed after the cock had crowed. In the romance of Doon de 
Mayence, the feudal lord of that great city and territory is introduced 
exhorting his son to rise betimes, for, he says, " he who sleeps too long 
in the morning, becomes thin and lazy, and loses his day by it, if he 
does not amend himself." 

Qui trop dort au matin, maigre devient et las, 

Et sa journee en pert, s'y n'en amende pas. — Doon de Mayence, p. 76. 

In the same romance, two of the heroes, Doon and Baudouin, also 
rise with the sun, and dress and wash, and then say their prayers; after 
which their attendant Vaudri " placed between them two a very large 
pasty, on a white napkin, and brought them wine, and then said to them 

* "Quod, mola detritum, et aqua rorante perfusum, more usitato, in camino 
sestuante est depositum." — Reg. Dunelm., p. 128. He owns they were so small that 
they hardly deserved the name of loaves : " Vix enim bis seni panes erant numero, 
qui tamen minores adeo quantitate fuerant quod indignum videretur panum eos 
censeri vocabulo." 



106 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

in fair words, like a man of sense, ' Sirs, you shall eat, if it please you ; 
for eating early in the morning brings great health, and gives one 
greater courage and spirit ; and drink a little of this choice wine, which 
will make you strong and fierce in fight.' .... And when Doon saw 
it, he laughed, and began to eat and drink, and they breakfasted very 
pleasantly and peacefully." John of Bromyard, who wrote at a later 
period, has handed down a story of a man who despaired of overcom- 
ing the difficulty he found in keeping the fasts, until he succeeded in 
the following manner : at the hour of matins (three o'clock in the 
morning), when he was accustomed to break his fast, and was greatly 
tempted to eat, he said to himself, " I will fast until tierce (nine o'clock), 
for the love of God ; " and when tierce came, he said he would fast 
unto sext (the hour of noon), and so again he put off eating until none 
(three o'clock in the afternoon) ; and so he gradually learnt to fast all 
day. We may perhaps conclude that, at the time when this story was 
made, nine o'clock was the ordinary hour of dinner. 

This last-mentioned meal was certainly served early in the day, and 
was often followed by recreations in the open air. In the romance of 
Huon de Bordeaux (p. 252), the Christian chiefs, after their dinner, go 
to amuse themselves on the sea-shore. In Doon de Mayence (p. 245), 
they play at chess and dice after dinner ; and on another occasion, in 
the same romance (p. 314), the barons, after their dinner, sing and 
dance together; while in Fierabras (p. 185), Charlemagne and his 
court ride out on horseback, and set up a quintain, at which they 
jousted all day (tout lejour — which would imply that they began early), 
until vespers (probably seven o'clock), when they returned into the 
palace to refresh themselves, and afterwards to go to bed. Supper was 
certainly served in the evening, and in these romances people are 
spoken of as going to bed immediately after it. On one occasion, in 
Doon de Mayence (p. 303), Charlemagne's barons take no supper, but, 
after their beds are prepared, they are served plentifully with fruits and 
wine. In the same romance (p. 16), the guards of a castle go out, be- 
cause it was a warm evening in summer, and have their supper laid out 
on a table in the field, where they remain long amusing themselves. 
In Fierabras (p. 68), the barons take a hot bath after dinner. 

Of the articles of household furniture during the period of which we 



NORMAN SEATS. 



107 



are now writing, we cannot give many examples. We have every reason 
to believe that they were anything but numerous. A board laid upon 
tressels formed the usual dining-table, and an ordinary bench or form 
the seat. In the French Carlovingian romances, the earlier of which 
may be considered as representing society in the twelfth century, even 
princes and great barons sit ordinarily upon benches. Thus, in the 




No. 72. — The Knight and his Lady. 

romance of Huon de Bordeaux (pp. 33, 36), Charlemagne invites the 
young chieftain, Huon, who had come to visit him in his palace, to sit 
on the bench and drink his wine ; and in the same romance (p. 263), 
when Huon was received in the abbey of St Maurice, near Bordeaux, 
he and the abbot sat together on a bench. Chairs belonged to great 
people. The above group, taken from 
a manuscript of the fourteenth cen- 
tury in the National Library in Paris, 
represents the lord and lady of the 
household seated . in their settle of 
dignity, like the Anglo-Saxons in a 
former cut (No. 32, p. 54), with their 
young son, and is a proof how little 
change domestic manners had under- 
gone. Our cut, No. 73, taken from 
the Trinity College Psalter, repre- 
sents a chair of state, with its covering of drapery thrown over it. In 
some instances the cushion appears placed upon the drapery. This seat 




No. 73. — A Faldestol. 



io8 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



was the faldestol, a word which has been transformed in modern French 
to fauteuil (translated in English by elbow-chair). We read in the 
Chanson de Roland of the faldestol which was placed for princes, and 
of the covering of white "fialie " (a rich stuff) which was spread over 
it. That of Charlemagne was of pure gold — 

Un faldestoed i unt fait tut d'or mer: 

La siet li reis qui dulce France tient. — Chanson de Roland, p. 5. 

The faldestol of the Saracen King of Spain was covered with a " palie " 
of Alexandrian manufacture — 

Un faldestoet out suz l'umbre d'un pin, 

Envolupet fut d'un palie Alexandrin ; 

La. fut li reis Id tute Espaigne tint. — lb. p. 17. 

The infidel emir from Egypt, when he arrives in Spain, is seated in the 
midst of his host on a, faldestol of ivory. 

Sur 1'erbe verte getent un palie blanc, 

Un faldestoed i unt mis d'olifan ; 

Desuz s'asiet li paien Baligant. — lb. p. 102. 

The faldestol is elsewhere described as 
made of similar rich materials. In the 
romance of Huon de Bordeaux, Charle- 
magne is represented as sitting in a fal- 
destol made of pure gold. 

Karles monta ens el palais plenier ; 
II est asis u faudestuef d'ormier. 

— Huon de Bordeaux, p. 286. 



The mouldings of the faldestol in the 
cut No. 73 will be recognised as exactly 
the same which are found on old furni- 
ture of a much more recent period, and 
which, in fact, are those which offer them- 
selves most readily to ordinary turners. The same ornament is seen 
on the chair represented in our cut No. 74, taken from the same 
manuscript as the last, in which two men are seated in a very singular 
manner. It was not uncommon, however, to have seats which held 
several persons together, such as the one represented in an Anglo- 




No. 74. — Two Chiefs seated. 



NORMAN SEATS. 



Saxon illumination given in a former chapter (p. 41), and such are 
still to be seen in country public-houses, where they have preserved 
the Anglo-Saxon name of settle. One of these is represented in our 
cut No. 75. The persons seated in it, in this case, are learned men, 




No. 75.— An Anglo-Norman Settle. 



and the cross above seems to show that they are monks. One has 
a table-book, and two of the others have rolls of parchment, which 
are all evidently the subject of anxious discussion. 




No. 76.— -Seats in the Wall. 



Chairs, and even stools, were, as has been already observed, by no 
means abundant in these early times, and we can easily suppose that it 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



would be a difficult thing to accommodate numerous visitors with seats. 
To remedy this, when houses were built of stone, it was usual to make, 
in the public apartments, seats, like benches, in recesses in the wall, 
or projecting from it, which would accommodate a number of persons 
at the same time. We find such seats usually in the cloisters of monas- 
teries, as well as in the chapter-houses of our cathedral churches. In 
the latter they generally run round the room, and are divided by arches 
into seats which were evidently intended to accommodate two persons 
each, for the convenience of conversation. This practice is illustrated 
by our cut No. 76, taken, like the preceding one, from the Cambridge 
Manuscript ; it represents a group of seats of this kind, in which monks 
(apparently) are seated and conversing two and two. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Norman Hall. — Social Sentiments under the Anglo-Normans. — 
Domestic Amusements. — Candles and Lanterns. — Furniture. — Beds. 
— Out-of -Door Recreations. — Hunting. — Archery. — Convivial Inter- 
course and Hospitality. — Travelling. — Punishments. — The Stocks. — 
A Norman School. — Education. 

A LEXANDER NECKAM has left us a sufficiently clear descrip- 
-* *■ tio.n of the Norman hall. He says that it had a vestibule or 
screen (veslibulum), and was entered through a porch (portions), and 
that it had a court, the Latin name of which {atrium) he pretends was 
derived from ater (black), "because the kitchens used to be placed by 
the side of the streets, in order that the passers-by might perceive the 
smell of cooking." This explanation is so mysterious, that we may 
suppose the passage to be corrupt, but the coquince of which Neckam is 
speaking are evidently cooks' shops. In the interior of the hall, he 
says, there were posts (or columns) placed at regular distances. The 
few examples of Norman halls which remain are divided internally by 
two rows of columns. Neckam enumerates the materials required in 
the construction of the hall, which seem to show that he is speaking of 
a timber building. A fine example of a timber hall, though of a later 
period, is, or was recently, standing in the city of Gloucester, with its 
internal "posts" as here described. There appears also to have been 
an inner court-yard, in which Neckam intimates that poultry were kept. 
The whole building, and the two court-yards, were no doubt surrounded 
by a wall, outside of which were the garden and orchard. The Normans 
appear to have had a taste for gardens, which formed a very important 
adjunct to the mansion, and to the castle, and are not unfrequently 
alluded to in mediaeval writers, even as far back as the twelfth century. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Giraldus Cambrensis, speaking of the castle of Manorbeer (his birth- 
place), near Pembroke, said that it had under its walls, besides a fine 
fish-pond, " a beautiful garden, inclosed on one side by a vineyard, and 
on the other by a wood, remarkable for the projection of its rocks, and 
the height of its hazel-trees." 

A new characteristic was introduced into the Norman houses, and 
especially into the castles, the massive walls of which allowed chimney- 
flues to be carried up in their thickness. The piled-up fire in the 
middle of the hall was still retained, but in the more private apartments, 
and even sometimes in the hall itself, the fire was made on a hearth 
beneath a fire-place built against the side 
wall of the room. An illumination, in the 
Cottonian MS. Nero, C. iv., which we have 
already had occasion to refer to more than 
once, represents a man warming himself at a 
fireplace of this description. It appears, 
from a comparison of this (No. 77) with 
similar figures of a later period, that it was a 
usual practice to sit at the fire bare-legged 
and bare-foot, with the object of imbibing 
the heat without the intermediation of shoes 
or stockings. On a carved stall in Worcester 
Cathedral, represented in our cut, No. 78, 
which belongs to a later date (the latter part 
of the fourteenth century), and the scene of which is evidently intimated 
to be in the winter season, a man, while occupied in attending to the 
culinary operations, has taken off his shoes in order to warm himself in 
this manner. The winter provisions, two flitches of bacon, are sus- 
pended on his left, and on the other side the faithful dog seems 
to enjoy the fire equally with his master. From a story related by 
Reginald of Durham, it appears to have been a practice among the 
ladies to warm themselves by sitting over hot water, as well as by the 
fire.* In some of the illuminations of mediaeval manuscripts, ladies 
are represented as warming themselves, even in the presence of the 
other sex, in a very free-and-easy manner. The fuel chiefly employed 
* " Quod si super aquas seu ad ignem se calefactura sedisset." — Reg. Dunelm. c. 124. 




No. 77. — A Man warming 
himself. 



SOCIAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



ii3 



was no doubt still wood, but the remark of Giraldus Cambrensis that 
the name of Coleshulle (in Flintshire) signified the hill of coals (car- 
bonum collis) implies that mineral coals were then known. We have 
evidence of the knowledge and use of mineral coal in England from 
very early times. 

It is hardly necessary to remark that, in the change in the mode of 
living which had suddenly taken place in this country, a form of society 
had also been introduced abruptly which differed entirely from that of 
the Anglo-Saxons. On the Continent, throughout the now disjointed 
empire which had once been ruled by Charlemagne, there had arisen, 
during the tenth century, amid frightful misgovernment and the savage 




iqqnm-TiHIiilTUBfm 

No. 78.— Signs of Cold Weather. 

invasions of the Northmen, a new form of society, which received the 
name of feudalism, because each landowner held, either direct from the 
crown or from a superior baron, by a feudal tenure or fee {feodum, 
feudum), which obliged him to military service. Each baron had sove- 
reignty over all those who held under him, and, in turn, acknowledged 
the nominal sovereignty of a superior baron or of the crown, which the 
latter was only sometimes practically able to enforce. One great prin- 
ciple of this system was the right of private warfare ; and, as not only 
did the great barons obtain land in feudal tenure in different countries 
under different independent princes, but the lesser holders of sub-fees 
obtained such tenures under more than one superior lord, and as these, 



H4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

when they quarrelled with one superior, made war upon him, and threw 
themselves upon the protection of another who felt bound to defend 
his feudatory, war became the normal state of feudal society, and peace 
and tranquillity were the exceptions. One effect of feudalism was to 
divide the population of the country into two distinct classes — the 
landholders, or fighting-men, who alone were free, and the agricultural 
population, who had no political rights whatever, and were little better 
than slaves attached to the land. The towns alone, by their own in- 
nate force, preserved their independence, but in France the influence 
of feudalism extended even over them, and the combined hostility of 
the crown and the aristocracy finally overthrew their municipal inde- 
pendence. Feudalism was brought into England by the Normans, but 
it was never established here so completely or so fully as on the Conti- 
nent. The towns here never lost their independence, but they sided 
sometimes with the aristocracy, and sometimes with the crown, until 
finally they assisted greatly in the overthrow of feudalism itself. Yet the 
whole territory of England was now distributed in great fees, and in 
sub-fees ; amid which a few of the old Saxon gentry retained their posi- 
tion, and many of the Norman intruders married the Saxon heiresses, 
in order, as they thought, to strengthen the right of conquest ; but the 
mass of the agricultural population were confounded under the one 
comprehensive name of villains (villani), and reduced to a much more 
wretched condition than under the Anglo-Saxon constitution. The light 
in which the villain was regarded in the twelfth century in England is 
well illustrated in a story told in the English " Rule of Nuns," printed 
by the Camden Society. A knight who had cruelly plundered his poor 
villains, was complimented by one of his flatterers, who said, " Ah, sir ! 
truly thou dost well. For men ought always to pluck and pillage the 
churl, who is like the willow — it sprouteth out the better for being often 
cropped." 

The power and wealth of the great Norman baron were immense, 
and before him, during a great part of the period of which we are now 
speaking, the law of the land was a mere nominal institution. He was 
in general proud, very tyrannical, and often barbarously cruel. A type 
of the feudal baron in his worst point of view is presented to us in the 
character of the celebrated Robert de Belesme, who succeeded his father 



SOCIAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



Roger de Montgomery in the earldom of Shropshire, and of whom 
Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in his time, tells us, " He was a very 
Pluto, Megaera, Cerberus, or anything that you can conceive still more 
horrible. He preferred the slaughter of his captives to their ransom. 
He tore out the eyes of his own children, when in sport they hid their 
faces under his cloak. He impaled persons of both sexes on stakes. To 
butcher men in the most horrible manner was to him an agreeable feast." 
Of a contemporary feudal chieftain in France, the same writer tells us, 
" When any one, by fraud or force, fell into his hands, the captive might 
truly say, ' The pains of hell compassed me round.' Homicide was his 
passion and his glory. He imprisoned his own countess, an unheard-of 
outrage; and, cruel and lewd at once, while he subjected her to fetters 
and torture by day, to extort money, he forced her to cohabit with him 
by night, in order to mock her. Each night his brutal followers dragged 
her from her prison to his bed, each morning they carried her from 
his chamber back to her prison. Amicably addressing any one who 
approached him, he would plunge a sword into his side, laughing the 
while ; and for this purpose he carried his sword naked under his cloak 
more frequently than sheathed. Men feared him, bowed down to him, 
and worshipped him." Women of rank are met with in the histories of 
this period who equalled these barons in violence and cruelty ; and the 
relations between the sexes were marked by little delicacy or courtesy. 
William the Conqueror beat his wife even before they were married. 
The aristocratic class in general lived a life of idleness, which would have 
been insupportable without some scenes of extraordinary excitement; 
and they not only indulged eagerly in hunting, but they continually 
sallied forth in parties to plunder. They looked upon the mercantile 
class especially as objects of hostility; and, as they could seldom over- 
come them in their towns, they waylaid them on the public roads, 
deprived them of their goods and money, and carried them to their 
castles, where they tortured them in order to force them to pay heavy 
ransoms. The young nobles sometimes joined together to plunder a 
fair or market. On the other hand, men who could not claim the pro- 
tection of aristocratic blood for their evil deeds, established themselves 
under that of the wild forests, and issued forth no less eagerly to plunder 
the country, and to perpetrate every description of outrage on the 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



persons of its inhabitants, of whatever class they might be, who fell into 
their power. The purity of womanhood was no longer prized where it 
was liable to be outraged with impunity ; and immorality spread widely 
through all classes and ranks of society. The declamations of the 
ecclesiastics and the satires of the moralists of the twelfth century may 
give highly-painted pictures, but they lead us to the conclusion that the 
manners and sentiments of the female sex during the Norman period 
were very corrupt. 

Nevertheless, feudalism did boast of certain dignified and generous 
principles, and there are noble examples of both sexes who shine 
forth more brightly through the general prevalence of vice and selfish- 
ness and injustice. It was within the walls of the feudal castle, amid 
the familiar intercourse which the want of amusement caused among its 
inmates, that the principle, or practice, arose, which we in modern 
times call gallantry, and which, though at first it only led to refinement 
in the forms of social manners, ended in producing refinement of senti- 
ment. It was among the feudal aristocracy, too, that the sentiment 
we term chivalry originated, which has varied considerably in its mean- 
ing at different periods, and which, in its best sense, existed more in 
romance than in .reality. After the possession of personal strength and 
courage, the quality which the feudal baron admired most, was what was 
termed generosity, but which meant lavish expenditure and extravagance; 
it formed the contrast between the baron, who spent his money, and 
the burgher or merchant, who gained it, and laid it up in his coffers. 
" Noblemen and gentlemen," says the " Rule of Nuns," already quoted, 
" do not carry packs, nor go about trussed with bundles, nor with 
purses ; it belongs to beggars to bear bag on back, and to burgesses to 
bear purses." In fact, it was the principle of the feudal aristocracy to 
extort their gains from all who laboured and trafficked, in order to 
squander them on those who lived in idleness, violence, and vice. 
Under such circumstances, a new class' had arisen which was peculiar 
to feudal society, who lived entirely upon the extravagance of the 
aristocracy, and who had so completely abandoned every sentiment of 
morality or shame, that, in return for the protection of the nobles, they 
were the ready instruments of any base work. They were called, 
among various other names, ribalds (ribaldi) and letchers (leccatores) ; 



SOCIAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 117 

the origin of the first of these words is not known, but the latter is 
equivalent to dish-lickers, and did not convey the sense now given to 
the word, but was applied to them on account of their gluttony. We 
have already seen how, in the crowd which attended the feasts of the 
princes and nobles, the letchers {lecheurs) were not content with waiting 
for what was sent away from table, but seized upon the dishes as they 
were carried from the kitchen to the hall, and how it was found 
necessary to make a new office, that of ushers of the hall, to repress the 
disorder. " In those great courts," says the author of the " Rule of 
Nuns," " they are called letchers who have so lost shame, that they are 
ashamed of nothing, but seek how they may work the greatest villany." 
This class spread through society like a great sore, and from the terms 
used in speaking of them we derive a great part of the opprobrious 
words which still exist in the English language. 

The early metrical romances of the Carlovingian cycle give us an 
insight into what were considered as the praiseworthy features in the 
character of the feudal knight. In " Doon of Mayence," for example, 
when (p. 74) the aged count Guy sends his young son Doon into the 
world, he counsels him thus : " You shall always ask questions of good 
men, and you shall never put your trust in a stranger. Every day, fair 
son, you shall hear the holy mass, and give to the poor whenever you 
have money, for God will repay you double. Be liberal in gifts to all ; 
for the more you give, the more honour you will acquire, and the richer 
you will be ; for a gentleman who is too sparing will lose all in the end, 
and die in wretchedness and disgrace ; but give without promising 
wherever you can. Salute all people when you meet them, and, if you 
owe anything, pay it willingly ; but if you cannot pay, ask for a respite. 
When you come to the hostelry, don't stand squabbling, but enter glad 
and joyously. When you enter the house, cough very loud, for there 
may be something doing which you ought not to see, and it will cost 
you nothing to give this notice of your approach, while those who 
happen to be there will love you the better for it. Do not quarrel with 
your neighbour, and avoid disputing with him before other people ; for 
if he know anything against you, he will let it out, and you will have 
the shame of it. When you are at court, play at tables, and if you 
have any good points of behaviour (dehors), show them ; you will be 



n8 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

the more prized, and gain the more advantage. Never make a noise 
or joke in church; this is only done by unbelievers, whom God loves 
not. Honour all the clergy, and speak fairly to them, but leave them 
as little of your goods as you can ; the more they get from you, the 
more you will be laughed at ; you will never profit by enriching them. 
And if you wish to save your honour undiminished, meddle with no- 
thing you do not understand, and don't pretend to be a proficient in what 
you have never learnt. And if you have a valet, take care not to seat him 
at the table by you, or take him to bed with you ; for the more honour 
you do to a low fellow, the more will he despise you. If you should 
know anything that you would wish to conceal, tell it by no means to 
your wife, if you have one ; for if you let her know it, you will repent 
of it the first time you displease her." The estimate of the female 
character at this period, even when given in the romances of chivalry, 
is by no means flattering. 

With these counsels of a father, we may compare those of a mother 
to her son. In the romance of " Huon de Bordeaux " (p. 18), when the 
youthful hero leaves his home to repair to the court of Charlemagne, 
the duchess addresses her son as follows : — " My child," she said, ' ' you 
are going to be a courtier ; I require you, for God's love, have nothing 
to do with a treacherous flatterer ; make the acquaintance of wise men. 
Attend regularly at the service of holy church, and show honour and 
love to the clergy. Give your goods willingly to the poor ; be cour- 
teous, and spend freely, and you will be the more loved and cherished.'' 
On the whole, higher sentiments are placed in the mouth of the lady 
than in that of the baron. We must, however, return to the outward, 
and, therefore, more apparent, characteristics of social life during the 
Norman period. 

The in-door amusements of the ordinary classes of society appear not 
to have undergone much change during the earlier Norman period, but 
the higher classes lived more splendidly and more riotously ; and, as far 
as we can judge, they seem to have been coarser in manners and feel- 
ings. The writer of the Life of Hereward has left us a curious picture 
of Norman revelry. When the Saxon hero returned to Brunne, to the 
home of his fathers, and found that it had been taken possession of by 
a Norman intruder, he secretly took his lodging in the cottage of a 



DOMESTIC AMUSEMENTS. 



villager close by. In the night he was roused from his pillow by loud 
sounds of minstrelsy, accompanied with boisterous indications of mer- 
riment, which issued from his father's hall, and he was told that the new 
occupants were at their evening cups. He proceeded to the hall, and 
entered the doorstead unobserved, from whence he obtained a view of 
the interior of the hall. The new lord of Brunne was surrounded by 
his knights, who were scattered about helpless from the extent of their 
potations, and reclining in the laps of their women. In the midst of 
them stood a jougleur, or minstrel, alternately singing and exciting their 
mirth with coarse and brutal jests. It is a first rough sketch of a part 
of mediaeval manners, which we shall find more fully developed at a 
somewhat later period. The brutality of manners exhibited in the 
scene which I have but imperfectly described, and which is confirmed 
by the statements of writers of the following century, soon degenerated 
into heartless ferocity, and when we reach the period of the civil wars 
of Stephen's reign, we find the amusements of the hall varied with the 
torture of captive enemies. 

In his more private hours of relaxation, the Norman knight amused 
himself with games of skill or hazard. Among these, the game of chess 
became now very popular, and many of the rudely carved chessmen of 
the twelfth century have been found in our island, chiefly in the north, 
where they appear to. have been manufactured. They are usually made 
of the tusk of the walrus, the native ivory of Western Europe, which 
was known popularly as whale's bone. The whalebone of the Middle 
Ages is always described as white, and it was a common object of com- 
parison among the early English poets, who, when they would describe 
the delicate complexion of a lady, usually said that she was " white as 
whale's bone." These, as well as dice, which were now in common 
use, were also made of horn and bone, and the manufacture of such 
articles seems to have been a very extensive one. Even in the little 
town of Kirkcudbright, on the Scottish border, there was, in the middle 
of the twelfth century, a maker of combs, draughtsmen, chessmen, dice, 
spigots, and other such articles, of bone and horn ; and stag's horn 
appears to have been a favourite material* 

* "Quidam de villula in confinio posita, artificiosus minister, sub diurno tempore 
studiosus advenit, cujus negotiationis opus in pectinibus conformandis, tabulatis et 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DA VS. 



In the " Chanson de Roland," Charlemagne and his knights are repre- 
sented, after the capture of Cordova from the Saracens, as sitting in a 
shady garden, some of them playing at tables, and others at chess. 

Sur palies blancs siedent cil cevalers, 
As tables juent pur els esbaneier, 
E as eschecs li plus saive e li veill, 
E escremissent cil bacheler leger. 

Chess, as the higher game, is here described as the amusement of the 
chiefs, the old, and the wise ; the knights play at tables, or draughts ; 
but the young bachelors are admitted to neither of these games, they 
amuse themselves with bodily exercises — sham fights. Our cut, No. 
79, representing a lady and gentleman engaged in a game of chess, is 




No. 79. — A noble Chess-Party. 

an illustration of this sentiment. It is taken from a manuscript of the 
fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris, No. 7266, and re- 
presents Otho, Marquis of Brandenburg, playing at chess with a lady 
of rank. The heroes and heroines of the mediaeval romances are often 
introduced playing at chess. 

Although such games were not unusually played by day, they were 
more especially the amusements which employed the long evenings of 
winter, and candles appear at this time to have been more generally 
used than at a former period. They still continued to be fixed on can- 

scaccariis, talis, spiniferis, et cseteris talibus, de cornuum vel solidiori ossuum materia 
procreandis et studium intentionis effulsit." — Reg. Dunelm, c. 88. 



CANDLES AND LANTERNS. 



dlesticks, and not in them, and spikes appear sometimes to have been 
attached to tables or other articles of furniture, to hold them. Thus, 
in one of the pretended miracles told by Reginald of Durham, a sacris- 
tan, occupied in committing the sacred vestments to the safety of a 
cupboard, fixed his candle on a stick or spike of wood on one side 
(candelam . . . in assere collaterals confixif), and forgetting to take away 
the candle, locked the cupboard-door, and only became aware of his 
negligence when he found the whole cupboard in flames. Another eccle- 
siastic, reading in bed, fixed his candle on the top of one of the sides 
{spondilia) of his bed. Another individual bought two small candies 
(candclas modicas) for an obolus, but the value of the coin thus named 
is not very exactly known. The candle appears to have been usually 
placed at night in or on the chimney or fire-place, with which the 
chamber was now furnished. In " Fierabras " (p. 93), a thief having ob- 
tained admission in the night to the chamber of the Princess Floripas, 
takes a candle from the chimney, and lights it at the fire, from which 
we are led to suppose that it was usual to keep the fire alight all night. 

Isnelement et tost vient a la ceminee, 
Une chandelle a prinse, au fu l'a alumee. 

On another occasion (p. 67), a fire is lit in the chimney of Floripas's 
chamber, and afterwards a table is laid there, and dinner served. 
Lanterns were now also in general use. The earliest figure 
of a lantern that I remember to have met with in an Eng- 
lish manuscript is one furnished by MS. Cotton. Nero, C. 
iv. (of the twelfth century), which is represented in our cut 
No. 80. It differs but little from the same article as used 
in modern times ; the sides are probably of horn, with a 
small door through which to put the candle, and the domed 
cover is pierced with holes for the egress of the smoke. 

We begin now to be a little better acquainted with the 
domestic occupations of the ladies, but we shall be able to 
treat more fully of these in a subsequent chapter. Not the least usual 
of these was weaving, an art which appears to have been practised very 
extensively by the female portion of the larger households. The manu- 
script Psalter in Trinity College, Cambridge, furnishes us with the very 




THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



curious group of female weavers given in our cut No. 81. It ex- 
plains itself, as much, at least, as it can easily be explained, and I will 
only observe that the scissors here employed are of the form common 
to the Romans, to the Saxons, and to the earlier Normans ; they are 
the Saxon scear, and this name, as well as the form, is still preserved in 




No. 81. — Occupation of the Ladies. 



that of the " shears " of the modern clothiers. Music was also a 
favourite occupation, and the number of musical instruments appears 
to be considerably increased. Some of these seem to have been elabo- 
rately constructed. The manuscript last mentioned furnishes us with 
the accompanying figure of a large organ, of laborious though rather 
clumsy workmanship (No. 82), 

In the dwellings of the nobles and gentry, there was more show of 
furniture under the Normans than under the Saxons. Cupboards 
(armaria, armoires) were more numerous, and were filled with vessels 
of earthenware, wood, or metal, as well as with other things. Chests 
and coffers were adorned with elaborate carving, and were sometimes 
inlaid with metal, and even with enamel. The smaller ones were made 
of ivory, or bone, carved with historical subjects. Rich ornamentation 
generally began with the ecclesiastics, and we find by the subjects carved 
upon them that the earlier ivory coffers or caskets belonged to church- 
men. When they were made for lords and ladies, they were usually 
ornamented with subjects from romance, or from the current literature 
of the day. The beds, also, were more ornamental, and assumed novel 



NORMAN BEDS. 



123 



forms. Our cut No. 83, taken from MS. Cotton. Nero, C. iv., differs 
little from some of the Anglo-Saxon figures of beds. But the tester 




No. 82. — A Norman Organ. 



bed, or bed with a roof at the head, and hangings, was now introduced. 
In " Reginald of Durham," we are told of a sacristan who was accustomed 




No. 83.— A Norman Bed. 



to sit in his bed and read at night. One night, having fixed his candle 
upon one of the sides of the bed {supra spondilia lectuli suprema), he fell 
accidentally asleep. The fire communicated itself from the candle to 



124 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the bed, which, being filled with straw, was soon enveloped in flame, 
and this communicated itself with no less rapidity to the combination 
of arches and planks of which the frame of the bed was composed 
{ligna materies archarunt et asserwn copiosd). Above the bed was a 
wooden frame {qucedam tabularia straturd), on which he was accus- 
tomed to pile the curtains, dorsals, and other similar furniture of the 
church. Neckam, in the latter part of the twelfth century, describes 
the chamber as having its walls covered with a curtain or tapestry. 




No. 84. — A Bed-Chamber Scene. 



Besides the bed, he says, there should be a chair, and at the foot of 
the bed a bench. On the bed is placed a quilt (culcitrd) of feathers 
(plumalis), to which is joined a pillow; and this is covered with a 
pointed {punctata) or striped (stragulatd) quilt, and a cushion is placed 
upon this, on which to lay the head. Then came sheets {linthea- 
mina, linceuls), made sometimes of rich silks, but more commonly of 
linen, and these were covered with a coverlet made of green say, or of 



NORMAN BEDS. 125 



cloth made of the hair of the badger, cat, beaver, or sable. On one 
side of the chamber was ■a.perche, or pole, projecting from the wall, for 
the falcons, and in another place a similar perch for hanging articles 
of dress. 

Neckam's description is well illustrated by the accompanying picture, 
taken from an illuminated manuscript of the " Romance of Othea," pre- 
served in the National Library in Paris, which affords a good representa- 
tion of the interior of a lady's chamber at that period. The lady is receiv- 
ing in her chamber the visit of her lover, and she is accompanied, as 
was usual with gentle ladies in those days, by her favourite greyhound, 
and by her hawk, the latter seated on her fist. We see here, as de- 
scribed by Neckam, laid upon the bed, the pillow, the quilt, and the 
cushion ; and by the side of the bed stands a chair. The bench, or 
here a settle, on which the happy couple are seated, has been moved 
from the foot of the bed to the side of the room, which is evidently not 
its usiial place, as it blocks up the entrance of a door. 

It was not unusual to have only one chamber in the house, in which 
there were, or could be made, several beds, so that all the company, 
even if of different sexes, slept in the same room. Servants and per- 
sons of lower degree might sleep unceremoniously in the hall. In the 
romance of " Huon de Bordeaux" (p. 270), Huon, his wife, and his 
brother, when lodged in a great abbey, sleep in three different beds in 
the same room, no doubt in the guest-house. Among the Anglo-Nor- 
mans, the chamber seems to have frequently, if not generally, occupied 
an upper floor, so that it was approached by stairs. 

The out-of-door amusements of this period appear in general to have 
been rude and boisterous. The girls and women seem to have been 
passionately fond of the dance, which was their common amusement at 
all public festivals. The young men applied themselves to gymnastic 
exercises, such as wrestling, and running, and boxing; and they had 
bull-baitings, and sometimes bear-baitings. On Roman sites, the ancient 
amphitheatres seem still to have been used for such exhibitions; and the 
Roman amphitheatre at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, was known by the 
title of " The Bull- Ring " down to a very late period. The higher ranks 
among the Normans were extraordinarily addicted to the chase, to secure 
which they adopted severe measures for preserving the woods and the 



126 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



beasts which inhabited them. Every reader of English history knows 
the story of the New Forest, and of the fate which there befell the great 
patron of hunting — William Rufus. The "Saxon Chronicle," in summing 
up the character of William the Conqueror, tells us that he "made large 
forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever killed 
a hart or a hind, should be blinded. As he forbade killing the deer, so 
also the boars ; and he loved the tall stags as if he were their father. 
He also appointed concerning the hares that they should go free." The 
passion of the aristocracy for hunting was a bane to the rural population 
in more ways than one. Not only did they ride over the cultivated 
lands, and destroy the crops, but wherever they came they lived at free 
quarters on the unfortunate population, ill-treating the men, and even 
outraging the females, at will. John of Salisbury complains bitterly of 
the cruelty with which the country-people were treated, if they happened 
to be short of provisions when the hunters came to their houses. " If 
one of these hunters come across your land," he says, " immediately 
and humbly lay before him everything you have in your house, and go 
and buy of your neighbours whatever you are deficient of, or you may 
be plundered and thrown into prison for your disrespect to your betters." 
The weapons generally used in hunting the stag were bows and arrows. 
It was a barbed arrow which pierced the breast of the second William, 
when he was hunting the stag in the wilds of the New Forest. Our 




No. 85.— A Stag-Hunt. 

cut No. 85, from the Trinity College Psalter, represents a horseman 
hunting the stag. The noble animal is closely followed by a brace of 
hounds, and just as he is turning up a hill, the huntsman aims an arrow 
at him. As far as we can gather from the few authorities in which it is 
alluded to, the Saxon peasantry were not unpractised hands at the bow. 



CONVIVIAL INTERCOURSE. 127 

We find them enjoying the character of good archers very soon after 
the Norman Conquest, under circumstances which seem to preclude the 
notion that they derived their knowledge of this arm from the invaders. 
In the miracles of St Bega, printed by Mr G. C. Tomlinson, in 1842, 
there is a story which shows the skill of the young men of Cumberland 
in archery very soon after the entrance of the Normans; and the original 
writer, who lived, perhaps, not much after the middle of the twelfth 
century, assures us that the Hibernian Scots, and the men of Galloway, 
who were the usual enemies of the men of Cumberland, " feared these 
sort of arms more than any others, and called an arrow, proverbially, a 
flying devil." We learn from this and other accounts, that the arrows 
of this period were barbed and fledged, or furnished with feathers. It 
may be observed, in support of the assertion that the use of bows and 
arrows was derived from the Saxons, that the names bow (boga) and 
arrow (arewe), by which they have always been known, are taken directly 
from their language; whereas, if the practice of archery had been intro- 
duced by the Normans, it is probable we should have called them arcs 
zxAfletches. 

After the entrance of the Normans, we begin to find more frequent 
allusions to the convivial meetings of the middle and lower orders in 
ordinary inns or private houses. Thus, we have a story in " Reginald of 
Durham," of a party of the parishioners of Kellow, who went to a drink- 
ing-party at the priest's, and passed in this manner a great portion of 
the night.* This occurred in the time of Bishop Geoffrey Rufus, be- 
tween 1 133 and 1140. A youth and his monastic teacher are repre- 
sented on another occasion as going to a tavern, and passing the whole 
of the night in drinking, till one of them becomes inebriated, and can- 
not be prevailed on to return home. Another of Reginald's stories 
describes a party in a private house, sitting and drinking round the fire. 
We are obliged thus to collect together slight and often trivial allusions 
to the manners of a period during which we have so few detailed de- 
scriptions. Hospitality was at this time exercised among all classes 
freely and liberally ; the misery of the age made people meet together 

* " Quidam Walterus .... qui ad domum sacerdotis villulae praedictse cum hospi- 
tibus potaturus accessit. Cum igitur noctis spatium effluxisset," &c. — Reg. Dun- 
elm, c. 17. 



128 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

with more kindliness. The monasteries had their open guest-houses, and 
the unknown traveller was seldom refused a place at the table of the 
yeoman. In towns, most of the burgesses or citizens were in the habit 
of receiving strangers as private lodgers, in addition to the accommo- 
dation afforded in the regular hospitia or taverns. Travelling, indeed, 
was more usual under the Normans than it had been under the Saxons, 
for it was facilitated by the more extensive use of horses. But this also 
brought serious evils upon the country ; for troops of followers and rude 
retainers who attended on the proud and tyrannical aristocracy, were 
in the habit of taking up their lodgings at will and discretion, and living 
upon the unfortunate householders without pay. It had been, even 
during the Anglo-Saxon period, a matter of pride and ostentation among 
men of rank — especially the king's officers — to travel about accom- 
panied with a great multitude of followers,""" and this practice certainly 
did not diminish under the Normans. But, whether in great numbers 
or in small, the travellers of the twelfth century sought the means of 
amusing themselves during their journey, and these amusements re- 
sembled some of those which were employed at the dinner-table — they 
told stories, or repeated episodes from romances, or sung, and they 
sometimes had minstrels to accompany them. In the romance of 
"Huon de Bordeaux," Huon, on his journey from his native city to Paris, 
asks his brother Gerard to sing, to enliven them on the road— 

Cante, biau frere, pour nos cors esjoir. — Huon de Bordeaux, p. 18. 

But Gerard declines, because a disagreeable dream of the preceding 
night has made his heart sorrowful. When we turn from romance to 
sober history, we learn from Giraldus Cambrensis how Gilbert de Clare, 
journeying from England to his great possessions in Cardiganshire, was 
preceded by a minstrel and a singing-man, who played and sang alter- 
nately, and how the noise they made gave notice of his approach to the 
Welshmen who lay in ambush to kill him. 

A group of Norman travellers is here given from the Cottonian MS. 

* Lantfridus, in his collection of the miracles of St Swithun, MS. Reg. 15, C. 
vii., fol. 41, v°, tells us how — "Quidam consul regis, in caducis prsepotens rebus, 
cum ingenti comitatu, sicut mos est Anglo-Saxonum, properanter equitabat ad quen- 
dam vicum in quo grandis apparatus ad necessarios convivandi usus erat illi opipare 
constructus," &c. 



TRA VELLING. 



129 



Nero, C. iv. It is intended to represent Joseph and the Virgin Mary 
travelling into Egypt. The Virgin on the ass, or mule, is another ex- 




No. 86. — Norman Travellers. 

ample of the continued practice among ladies of riding sideways. Mules 
appear to have been the animals on which ladies usually rode at this 
period. In the romance of "Huon de Bordeaux" (p. 60), when Huon, 
immediately after his marriage, proceeds on his journey homeward, he 
mounts his young duchess on a mule ; so also, in the romance of 
"Gaufrey" (p. 62), the Princess Flordespine is mounted on a "rich mule," 
the trappings of which are rather minutely described. " The saddle was 
of ivory, inset with gold ; on the bridle there was 
a gem of such power that it gave light in the 
darkness of night, and whoever bore it was pre- 
served from all disease." In the belief of the 
Middle Ages, gems were commonly possessed 
of magical virtues. " The saddle-cloth {sambue) 
was wonderfully made ; she had thirty little 
bells behind the cuirie, which, when the mule 
ambled, made so great a melody that harp or 
viol were worth nothing in comparison." The 
Anglo-Norman historian, Ordericus Vitalis, has 
preserved a legend of a vision of purgatory, in 

which the priest who is supposed to have seen it describes, among other 
suffering persons, " a crowd of women who seemed to him to be innumer- 




No. 87.— Cars. 



13° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



able. They were mounted on horseback, riding in female fashion, with 

women's saddles In this company the priest recognised several 

noble ladies, and beheld the palfreys and mules, with the women's litters, 
of others who were still alive." The Trinity College Psalter furnishes 
us with the two figures of cars given in our cut, No. 87 ; but they are 
so fanciful in shape, that we can hardly help concluding they must have 
been mere rude and grotesque attempts at imitating classical forms. 

The manuscript last mentioned affords us two other curious illustra- 
tions of the manners of the earlier half of the twelfth century. The first 




No 88.— The Stocks. 

of these (No. 88) represents two men in the stocks, one held by one leg 
only, the other by both. The men to the left are hooting and insulting 




No. 89. — A Norman School. 

them. The second, represented in our cut, No. 89, is the interior of a 
Norman school. We give only a portion of the original, in which the 



EDUCATION. 131 



bench, on which the scholars are seated, forms a complete circle. The 
two writers, the teacher, who seems to be lecturing viva voce, and his 
seat and desk, are all worthy of notice. We have very little information 
on the forms and methods of teaching in schools at this period, but 
schools seem to have been numerous in all parts of the country. We 
have more than one allusion to them in the naive stories of " Reginald 
of Durham." From one of these we learn that a school, according to a 
custom "now common enough," was kept in the church of Norham, on 
the Tweed, the parish priest being the teacher. One of the boys, 
named Aldene, had incurred the danger of correction, to escape which 
he took the key of the church door, which appears to have been in his 
custody, and threw it into a deep pool in the river Tweed then called 
Padduwel, and now Pedwel or Peddle, a place well known as a fishing 
station. He hoped by this means to escape further scholastic discipline, 
from the circumstance that the scholars would be shut out by the im- 
possibility of opening the church door. Accordingly when the time of 
vespers came, and the priest arrived, the key of the door was missing, 
and the boy declared that he did not know where it was. The lock 
was too strong and ponderous to be broken or forced, and, after a vain 
effort to open the door, the evening was allowed to pass without divine 
service. The story goes on to say, that in the night St Cuthbert 
appeared to the priest, and inquired wherefore he had neglected his 
service. On hearing the explanation, the saint ordered him to go next 
morning to the fishing station at Padduwel, and buy the first net of fish 
that was drawn out of the river. The priest obeyed, and in the net was 
a salmon of extraordinary magnitude, in the throat of which was found 
the lost key of Norham church. 

Among the aristocracy of the land, the education of the boy took 
what was considered at that time a very practical turn — he was instructed 
in behaviour, in manly exercises and the use of arms, in carving at table 
— then looked upon as a most important accomplishment among gentle- 
men — and in some other branches of learning which we should hardly 
appreciate at present ; but school learning was no mediaeval gentleman's 
accomplishment, and was, in that light, quite an exception, unless per- 
haps to a certain degree among the ladies. In the historical romances 
of the Middle Ages, a prince or a baron is sometimes able to read, but 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



it is the result of accidental circumstances. Thus in the romance of the 
" Mort de Garin," when the empress of the Franks writes secret news 
from Paris to Duke Garin, the head of the family of the Loherains, it is 
remarked as an unusual circumstance, that the latter was able to read, 
and that he could thus communicate the secret information of the 
empress to his friends without the assistance of a scholar or secretary, 
which was a great advantage, as it prevented one source of danger of 
the betrayal of the correspondence. "Garin the Loherain," says the 
narrator, "was acquainted with letters, for in his infancy he was put to 
school until he had learned both Roman (French) and Latin." 

De letres sot li Loherens Garins ; 

Car en s'enfance fu a. escole mis, 

Tant que il sot et Roman et Latin. — Mort de Garin, p. 105 . 

Education of this kind was bestowed more generally on the bourgeoisie 
— on the middle and even the lower classes ; and to these school- 
education was much more generally accessible than we are accustomed 
to imagine. From Anglo-Saxon times, indeed, every parish church had 
been a public school. The "Ecclesiastical Institutes " (p. 475, in the folio 
edition of the laws, by Thorpe) directs that " Mass-priests ought always 
to have at their houses a school of disciples ; and if any one desire to 
commit his little ones (lytlingas) to them for instruction, they ought very 
gladly to receive them, and kindly teach them." It is added that " they 
ought not, however, for that instruction, to desire anything from their 
relatives, except what they shall be willing to do for them of their own 
accord." In the "Ecclesiastical Canons," published under king Edgar, 
there is an enactment which would lead us to suppose that the clergy 
performed their scholastic duties with some zeal, and that priests 
were in the habit of seducing their scholars from each other, for this 
enactment (p. 396) enjoins " that no priest receive another's scholar 
without leave of him whom' he previously followed." This system of 
teaching was kept up during at least several generations after the Nor- 
man Conquest. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Domestic Schooling and Domestic Literature. — Latin taught to both Sexes 
in School. — Made the Instrument of Teaching Good Manners. — 
Grosseteste's Liber Urbanitatis. 

VARIOUS allusions in the popular writers of the Middle Ages lead 
us to believe that every gentleman's family, in which there were 
children, had its domestic or family school. In these schools the youth 
of both sexes were taught together. What was learnt in the school was, 
of course, what was called scholarship, and scholarship, in those times, 
meant especially instruction in the Latin tongue, which appears to have 
been taught in the school to both sexes. In their relations as scholars, 
we may easily imagine how attachments often arose which affected their 
future lives. M. Paulin Paris has printed in his " Romancero Fran- 
cois" (p. 62), a pleasant little poem entitled, " Le Roman de Floire et de 
Blanceflor," the subject of which is the affectionate attachment of two 
lovers, whose names are well known in the poetry of the Middle Ages. 
After Blanceflor's death, when Floire laments over her in her grave, he 
calls to memory how they loved when they were children at school, and 
how they expressed their love to one another in Latin, which none but 
the scholars understood. 

Bele, nous nous entramions 
Quant a l'escole aprenions ; 
L'uns a 1' autre son bon disoit 
En Latin, nus ne l'entendoit. 

It was indeed among the fair sex that this domestic scholarship seems 
to have been chiefly preserved and employed. I have before observed 
that the accomplishment of being able to read belonged rather to 



134 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

the female than to the male part of the mediaeval family, and it would 
not be difficult to illustrate this fact by examples. In the song of 
" Belle Doette " (the Fair Doette), also printed in the " Romancero 
Francois " (p. 46), the lady is introduced sitting in a window reading 
in a book, but she paid little attention to] what she was reading, for 
her thoughts wandered after her lover Doon, who was running after 
tournaments in foreign lands — 

Belle Doette, as fenestres seant, 
Lit en un livre, mais au cuer ne l'entent ; 
De son ami Doon li ressouviant, 
Qu'en autre terre est all.e tournoiant. 
Or en ai dol. 

There can be little doubt that the children of the feudal family were 
generally taught Latin, nor was the subject of their lessons considered 
of less importance than the language, especially with the boys. Reading 
Latin, and committing the lessons to memory, was the principal exercise 
of the scholar. In the public schools, the scholars were gradually intro- 
duced to the old Latin authors; but in the private and domestic schools, 
instruction in the principles of good behaviour and genteel manners was 
considered first. We find among mediaeval manuscripts, ranging from 
the twelfth to the fifteenth century, a number of curious pieces con- 
taining minute directions for behaviour in good society, written in 
Latin verse. These were no doubt used in the domestic school. They 
were written in Latin, because the boy was securing the legitimate 
object of the school at the same time that he was learning that 
refinement in personal manners and behaviour which was considered 
as distinguishing the gentleman from the villain, or rude and untaught 
peasant. They were written in verse, because they were intended to 
be committed to memory, which was the case generally in the mediaeval 
schools. Even in the school-books in the old grammar schools down 
to our own time, we find some part of the lessons in Latin grammar 
still laid out in Latin verse. I might quote, as a well-known example, 
the As-in-j>rcesenti of the Latin Grammar. 

Every one was considered to show his good manners best, or at 
least to be expected to do so, in the hall at table, and manners at 
table were among those in which the scholar was first instructed. 



« STANS PUER AD MENS AM." 135 

Among the most common of the pieces in Latin verse, composed for 
the purpose of which I am here speaking, is one bearing, under rather 
different forms, the title of " Stans Puer ad Mensam" — (the boy standing 
at table), as it gives directions for his conduct under those circum- 
stances. Several copies of this piece, which is written in Latin 
hexameters, are found among the mediaeval manuscripts of the British 
Museum of different dates. One of these occurs in the Harl. MS., 
No. 1002, in a handwriting of the fifteenth century, the age in which the 
outward forms of mediaeval manners were perhaps most insisted upon, 
and from this copy I will give a review of its teaching and doctrines. 
"While you are standing at your lord's table," the scholar is told, 
" learn the good maxims" — 

Stans puer ad mensam domirri, bona dogmata discas. 

Attention is first called to the personal bearing of the boy. He is 
while talking to " keep at perfect ease, and his fingers, hands, and feet 
quiet, to hold his countenance undisturbed, and not to roll his eyes 
about in every direction ; nor is he to fix his eyes upon the wall as if 
it were a looking-glass, or lean upon the post as if it were a walking- 
staff"— 

Dura loqueris digitique manus in pace pedes sint. 
Sis simplex vultu, visum nee ubique revolvas, 
Nee paries speculum, baculus nee sit tibi postis. 

Still less ought he in such company to pick his nose or to scratch 

himself, or to lean his head, but to look in the face of the one 

speaking — 

Non nares fodeas, camera propriam neque scalpas, 
Nee caput inclines, facies sit in ore loquentis. 

He is to go demurely in walking in the streets and ways — 
Pergas in pace per vicos atque plateas. 

He was not to let the colour in his face change suddenly through 
levity ; nor to burst into horse-laughs in the presence of his lord ; 
" despise laughing, by which you may be brought into contempt" — 

Nee coram domino debes monstrare cachinnos ; 
Sperne cachinnare, poteris quo vilificari. 



136 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

" Hold to these maxims, if thou wilt be considered polite " — 

Hsec documenta tene, si vis urbanus haberi. 

Next come the directions for behaviour at eating in the feudal meal. 
The first is, " Never take your food with unwashed hands" — 

Illotis manibus escam ne sumpseris unquam ; 

and " take the seat which the host has pointed out to you ; never pre- 
suming on a high place, unless you have been ordered to take it " — 

Atque loco sedeas tibi quem signaverit hospes ; 
Altum sperne locum tibi sumere sis nisi jussus. 

" Touch not the bread and wine till the dishes are placed, or you will 
be said to be starved or gluttonous " — 

Fercula donee sint sita, pani parce meroque, 
Ne fame captus dicaris, sive gulosus. 

" Nor eat anything until grace has been said " — 

Nee escas capias donee benedictio fiat. 

" Let thy nails be clean, lest perchance they offend thy neighbour" — 

Mundi sint ungues, noceant ne forte sodali. 
" Eat all that has been served to you, or let it be given to the poor" — 

Morsellum totum comedas, vel detur egenis. 

It was customary at the mediaeval table, in the course of carving, to 
lay aside a portion of the provisions for the poor, for whom there was a 
basket, or some large vessel, in the hall, in which all the offal was placed, 
and it was sent out in charity to the beggars, who assembled at the 
hall-door in the court. Hence it was considered a part of genteel 
behaviour in hall to put aside the part of your own share of provisions 
which you were unable to eat yourself, and add it to that which was 
sent to the poor. 

You are taught to be quiet at table, and not to indulge in much 

chattering — 

Pace fruens multis caveas garrire loquelis. 

"Avoid swelling out your cheeks by taking a great lump into your 
mouth at once" — 

Maxillamque bolo caveas expandere magno. 



"STANS PUER AD MENS AM." 137 

" Nor eat your food on both sides of your mouth at once " — 

Nee gemma parte vescaris cibis simul oris. 

" Never laugh or talk with your mouth full " — 

Nunquam ridebis nee faberis ore repleto. 

Directions are then given with regard to your plate. You are not to 
make a noise in it by over-eating ; the spoon is not to be left standing 
in it, nor lying on its edge, for fear of fouling the table-cloth ; nor must 
you return to the dish a morsel once taken up • and call not back to 
the table a dish which has been taken away — 

In disco nunquam cochlear stet, nee super oram 
Ipsius jaceat, ne mappam polluat udo. 
In discum tacta buccella retrograda non sit ; 
Discum de mensa sublatum nee revocabis. 

'•' Never spit over the table or upon it " — 

Non ultra mensam spueris nee desuper unquam. 

" Scrape not nor scratch your own skin with your fingers ; always avoid 
wiping your nose with a clean hand " — handkerchiefs were not in use at 
this time — " and at table avoid picking your teeth with your knife " — 

Non carnem propriam digitis verres neque scalpas ; 
Semper munda manus devitet tergere nasum ; 
Mensa cultello dentes mundare caveto. 

" Drink not at table while you have food in your mouth " — 
Ore tenens escas potum superaddere noli. 

" Never bring to table what may offend your companions " — 
Quod noceat sociis in mensa ne refer unquam. 

This refers to familiarity with animals — "Be careful at table not to 
handle the cat or the dog " — 

Mensa murilegum caveas palpare canemque. 

The young guest was admonished to beware of staining the table- 
cloth with his knife — 

\ 
Mensa cultello mappam maculare caveto. 



138 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



And he was to wipe his mouth before drinking — 
Oreque polluto non potabis nisi terso. 

Such were the rules for good behaviour in the feudal hall during the 
fourteenth century, as taught in the domestic schools, and this Latin 
metrical code of good manners concludes with the wish that all who 
refuse to conform to these teachings should be banished from every 
polite table — 

Privetur mensa qui spernit hsec documenta. 

In the Harleian MS., this poem ends with the statement that 
the author of this code was the celebrated Robert Grosseteste, Bishop 
of Lincoln, one of the bright stars of English literature and learning in 
the thirteenth century — 

Hcec qui me docuit, Grossum-caput est sibi nomen • 
Prsesul et ille fuit, cui det felix Deus omen. 

This leads me to speak of another custom among our early fore- 
fathers, which is of course closely connected with the history of 
domestic manners — it is that of fostering, of which we shall have to 
speak further on. With the same spirit as that of fostering, men of 
position sought to take the children of other families into their own, 
and give them instruction in their own domestic school, along with 
their own children. The children of good family were thus commonly 
sent into the household of another family to be educated as became 
their rank or character. Some men of rank and power distinguished 
themselves in this way, and their houses became in a manner schools 
of education and learning. It was the case especially ■ with several 
of the great ecclesiastics. Archbishop Becket is said to have set 
a bright example of this practice, and many of the sons of the great 
Anglo-Norman families of that time received their education in his 
household. William de Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, distinguished him- 
self in the same manner, and the same is said of Bishop Grosseteste, 
of Lincoln, who is stated to have been the author of the directions 
given above. 

The especial class of scholarship which came from these domestic 
schools was what we describe by the title of politeness. It dis- 



MINSTRELSY IN THE FEUDAL HALL. 139 

tinguished the aristocratic and the gentle class from the ungentle, — 
the gentleman, who was thus the man of education, from the clown or 
uneducated. The learned men in the Middle Ages called it in their 
Latin, urbanilas, because polite education belonged rather to the city 
(iirbs) than to the country. The feudal gentleman looked upon it 
simply as the code of manners which was enforced in the court of the 
feudal lord, ' and called it, in his French, curtoisie, courtly manners, 
which was expressed in the Latin by cicrialitas. The Latin metrical 
piece analysed above is called in the original manuscript Liber 
Urbanitatis. When the same tract was made more popular, and given 
in French or English verse, it was called " Le Livre de Courtoisie," 
or the " Boke of Curtasye." Courtesy became the distinction which 
separated the gentry from the unrefined part of society.* 

Domestic literature, in those early times, consisted chiefly, as we 
have already seen by one or two allusions, of poetry and romance, and 
seems to have been considered as belonging more especially to the 
female part of the household. We have already seen one lady at least 
reading poetry and romance. Poetry was essentially the literature of 
primeval society. Its composition was the work of a peculiar class — 
the primeval minstrel, and by him or his followers it was carried in the 
memory, and was repeated to the sound of the harp, or of some other 
musical instrument. Hence the minstrel was one of the regular 
attendants on the festive board. The object of this poetry was gene- 
rally to commemorate and celebrate the history and adventures of the 
family and its forefathers, which were listened to with profound interest 
by the members of the family and their guests who were present. 
This was the case in primitive times. At an early period the written 
book was substituted for the minstrel's song, and as the traditional 
exploits of the family had been committed to writing, portions of them 
were read aloud by one to whom that duty was intrusted. Every one 
who is well read in these subjects knows how large a portion of 
mediaeval history these family histories or romances form. They are 



* Mr F. J. Furnivall has published a very valuable and interesting collection of 
the documents relating to the domestic schooling, under the title of "The Babee's 
Book," printed in 1868 by the Early English Text Society. 



140 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



among the most valuable of the mediseval books which remain to our 
time. 

No doubt other books, of different kinds, and upon different sub- 
jects, were read at the table after dinner, but above most subjects the 
feudal family party would desire to listen to the deeds and exploits of 
the great men of his family or of his country; and there is a curious 
class of documents, belonging to our country at least, which I believe 
formed a portion of the domestic literature of the feudal hall. They 
consist of rolls of vellum, on which are written popular narratives of 
English history from the earliest period to the time at which the roll 
was compiled, and those which have been preserved belong mostly to 
the fourteenth century, or to the earlier half of the fifteenth. The 
number which remain lead us to believe that every gentleman's family 
possessed one of these rotular manuals of English history. In the talk 
at the table in the hall, questions of English history must frequently have 
fallen under discussion, and on such an occasion I suppose one of these 
manuals was brought forward and unrolled, and the portion relating to 
the disputed point was read aloud.* We can easily understand the 
satisfaction which would be felt by all the party, when such disputed 
points were thus set at rest as they arose in the feudal hall. 

* I have printed, in a volume for private gift (at the expense of Mr Joseph Mayer, 
of Liverpool, so well known for his valuable contributions to our national history and 
antiquities), a selection of these curious rolls, under the title of " Feudal Manuals of 
English History." 



CHAPTER X. 

Early English Houses. — Their General Form and Distribution. 

AFTER the middle of the twelfth century, we begin to be better 
acquainted with the domestic manners of our forefathers, and 
from that period to the end of the fourteenth century, the change was 
very gradual, and in many respects they remained nearly the same. In 
the middle classes, especially in the towns, there had been a gradual 
fusion of Norman and Saxon manners, while the Norman fashions and 
the Norman language prevailed in the higher classes, and the manners 
of the lower classes remained, probably, nearly the same as before the 
Conquest. 

We now obtain a more perfect notion of the houses of all classes, not 
only from more frequent and exact descriptions, but from existing re- 
mains. The principal part of the building was still the hall, or, accord- 
ing to the Norman word, the salle, but its old Saxon character seems to 
have been so universally acknowledged, that the first or Saxon name 
prevailed over the other. The name now usually given to the whole 
dwelling-house was the Norman word manoir or manor, and we find 
this applied popularly to the houses of all classes, excepting only the 
cottages of labouring people. In houses of the twelfth century, the 
hall, standing on the ground floor, and open to the roof, still formed 
the principal feature of the building. The chamber generally adjoined 
to it at one end, and at the other was usually a stable (croiche). The 
whole building stood within a small enclosure, consisting of a yard or 
court in front, called in Norman aire (area), and a garden, which was 
surrounded usually with a hedge and ditch. In front, the house had 
usually one door, which was the main entrance into the hall. From 
this latter apartment there was a door into the chamber at one end, 
and one into the croiche or stable at the other end, and a back door into 



142 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

the garden. The chamber had frequently a door which opened also 
into the garden ; the stable, as a matter of course, would have a large 
door or outlet into the yard. The chief windows were those of the 
hall. These, in common houses, appear to have been merely openings, 
which might be closed with wooden shutters; and in other parts of 
the -building they were nothing but holes (pertuis) • there appears to 
have been usually one of these holes in the partition wall between the 
chamber and the hall, and another between the hall and the stable. 
There was also an outer window, ox pertuis, to the chamber. 

In the popular French and Anglo-Norman fabliaux, or tales in verse, 
which belong mostly to the thirteenth century, we meet with many 
incidents illustrating this distribution of the apartments of the house, 
which no doubt continued essentially the same during that and the fol- 
lowing century. Thus in a fabliau published by M. Jubinal, an old 
woman of mean condition in life, Dame Auberee, is described as visit- 
ing a burgher's wife, who, with characteristic vanity, takes her into the 
chamber adjoining (en une chambre ilueques fires), to show her her hand- 
some bed. When the lady afterwards takes refuge with Dame Auberee, 
she also shows her out of the hall into a chamber close adjoining (en une 
chambre iluec dejoste). In a fabliau entitled " Du prestre crucifie," pub- 
lished by Me'on, a man returning home at night sees what is going on 
in the hall through a pertuis, or hole made through the wall for a 
window, before he opens the door (par un pertuis les a veuz). In an- 
other fabliau published in the larger collection of Barbazan, a lady in 
her chamber sees what is passing in the hall par un pertuis. In the 
fabliau of " Le povre clerc" (or scholar), the clerc, having asked for a night's 
lodging at the house of a miller during the miller's absence, is driven 
away by the wife, who expects a visit from her lover the priest, and is 
unwilling to have an intruder. The clerc, as he is going away, meets 
the miller, who, angry at the inhospitable conduct of his dame, takes 
him back to the house. The priest in the meantime had arrived, and 
is sitting in the hall with the good wife, who, hearing a knock at the 
door, makes her lover hide himself in the stable (croiche). From the 
stable the priest watches the company in the hall through a window 
(fenestre), which is evidently only another name for the pertuis. In 
one fabliau the gallant comes through the court or garden, and is let 



EARL Y ENGLISH HO USES. 1 4 3 

into the hall by the back door ; in another a woman is introduced into 
the chamber by a back door, or, as it is called in the text, a false door 
(par tin fax huis), while the hall is occupied by company. 

The arrangements of an ordinary house in the country are illustrated 
in the fabliau " De Barat et de Hairnet," printed in the collection of Bar- 
bazan. Two thieves undertake to rob a third of " a bacon," which he 
(Travers) had hung on the beam or rafter of his house, or hall : — 

Travers l'avoit a. une hart 
Au tref de sa meson pendu. 

The thieves make a hole in the wall, by which one enters without 
waking Travers or his wife, although they were sleeping with the door 
of their chamber open. The bacon is thus stolen and carried away. 
Travers, roused by the noise of their departure, rises from his bed, fol- 
lows the thieves, and ultimately recaptures his bacon. He resolves 
now to cook the bacon, and eat some of it, and for this purpose a fire 
is made, and a cauldron full of water hung over it. This appears to be 
performed in the middle of the hall. The thieves return, and, approach- 
ing the door, one of them looked through the perttiis, and saw the bacon 

boiling : — 

Baras mist son oeil au pertuis, 
Et voit que la chaudiere bout. 

The thieves then climb the roof, uncover a small space at the top 
silently, and attempt to draw up the bacon with a hook. 

From the unskilfulness of the mediaeval artists in representing details 
where any knowledge of perspective was required, we have not so much 
information as might be expected from the illuminated manuscripts 
relating to the arrangements of houses. But a fine illuminated copy of 
the romances of the " San Graal" and the " Round Table," executed at 
the beginning of the fourteenth century, and now preserved in the British 
Museum (MS. Addit. Nos. 10,292 — 10,294), furnishes us with one or 
two rather interesting illustrations of this subject. The romances them- 
selves were composed in Anglo-Norman, in the latter half of the twelfth 
century. The first cut which I shall select from this manuscript is a 
complete view of a house ; it belongs to a chapter entitled " Ensi que 
Lancelot ront ksfers d'une fenestre, et si entre dedens pour gesir avoec la 
royne." The queen has informed Lancelot that the head of her bed lies 



144 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



near the window of her chamber, and that he may come by night to the 
window, which is defended by an iron grating, to talk with her, and she 
tells him that the wall of the adjacent hall is in one part weak and 
dilapidated enough to allow of his obtaining an entrance through it ; but 
Lancelot prefers breaking open the grating in order to enter directly into 
the chamber, to passing through the hall. The grating of the chamber 




No. 90. — An Anglo-Norman House. 

window appears to have been common in the houses of the rich and 
noble; in the records of the thirteenth century, the grating of the 
chamber windows of the queen is often mentioned. The window be- 
hind Lancelot in our cut is that of the hall, and is distinguished by 
architectural ornamentation. The orna- 
mental hinges of the door, with the lock 
and the knocker, are also curious. Our 
next cut (No. 91), taken from this same 
manuscript, represents part of the house of 
a knight, whose wife has an intrigue with 
one of the heroes of these romances, King 
Claudas. The knight lay in wait to take the 
king, as he was in the lady's chamber at 
night, but the king, being made aware of 
his danger, escaped by the chamber-window, while the knight expected 
to catch him by entering at the hall door. The juxtaposition of hall 
and chamber is here shown very plainly. In another chapter of the 




No. 91.— The Hall and Chamber. 



EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES. 



145 



same romances, the king takes Lancelot into a chamber to talk with 
him apart, while his knights wait for them in the hall ; this is pictorially 
represented in an illumination copied in the accompanying cut (No. 
92), which shows exactly the relative position of the hall and chamber. 
The door here is probably intended for that which led from the hall 
into the chamber. 




No. 92. — The Knights in waiting. 

We see from continual allusions that an ordinary house, even among 
men of wealth, had usually only one chamber, which served as his 
sleeping-room, and as the special apartment of the female portion of the 
household — the lady and her maids — while the hall was employed during 
the day indiscriminately for cooking, eating, and drinking, receiving 
visitors, and a variety of other purposes, and at night it was used as a 
common sleeping-room. These arrangements, and the construction of 
the house, varied according to the circumstances of the locality and the 
rank of the occupiers. Among the rich, a stable did not form part of 
the house, but its site was often occupied by the kitchen, which was 
almost always placed close to the hall. Among the higher classes other 
chambers were built, adjacent to the chief chamber, or to the hall, 
though in larger mansions they sometimes occupied a tower or separate 
building adjacent. The form, however, which the manor-house 
generally took was a simple oblong square. A seal of the thirteenth 
century, attached to a deed by which, in June 1272, William Moraunt 



146 



THE HOMES OB OTHER DAYS. 




No. 93. — Seal of W. Moraunt. 



grants to Peter Picard an acre of land in the parish of Otteford in 
Kent, furnishes us with a representation of William Moraunf s manor- 
house. It is a simple square building, with 
a high-pitched roof, as appears always to 
have been the case in the early English 
houses, and a chimney. The hall-door, it 
will be observed, opens outwardly, as is the 
case in the preceding cuts, which was the 
ancient Roman manner of opening the outer 
door of the house; it may be added that 
it was the custom to leave the hall-door or 
huis (ostium) always open by day, as a sign 
of hospitality. It will also be observed that 
there is a curious coincidence in the form of chimney with the cuts 
from the illuminated manuscript. We must not overlook another cir- 
cumstance in these delineations, — the position of the chimney, which 
is usually over the chamber, and not over the hall. Fireplaces in the 
wall and chimneys were first introduced in the chamber. 

As the grouping together of several apartments on the ground-floor 
rendered the whole building less compact and less defensible, the practice 
soon arose, especially in the better memoirs, of making apartments above. 
This upper apartment was called a soler {solarium, a word supposed to 
be derived from sol, the sun, as being, by its position, nearer to that 
luminary, or as receiving more light from it). It was at first, and in the 
lesser mansions, but a small apartment raised above the chamber, and 
approached by a flight of steps outside, though (but more rarely) the 
staircase was sometimes internal. In our first cut from the Museum 
manuscript (No. 90), there is a soler over the chamber, to which the 
approach appears to be from the inside. In the early metrical tales the 
soler, and its exterior staircase, are often alluded to. Thus, in the fabliau 
" D'Estourmi," in Barbazan, a burgher and his wife deceive three monks 
of a neighbouring abbey who make love to the lady ; she conceals her 
husband in the soler above, to which he ascends by a flight of steps : — 

Tesiez, vous monterez la sus 
En eel solier tout coiement. 

The monk, before he enters the house, passes through the court (cortil), 






EARL Y ENGLISH HO USES. 1 47 

in which there is a sheepcot (bercil), or perhaps a stable. The husband 

from the soler above looks through a lattice or grate, and sees all that 

passes in the hall — 

Par la treillie le porlingne. 

The stairs seem, therefore, to have been outside the hall, with a latticed 

window looking into it from the top. The monk appears to have 

entered the hall by the back-door, and the chamber is adjacent to the 

hall (as in houses which had no soler), on the side opposite to that on 

which were the stairs. When another monk comes, the husband hides 

himself under the stairs (sous le degre). The bodies of the monks (who 

are killed by the husband) are carried out par mi line fausse posterne which 

leads into the fields (aus chans). In the fabliau of "La Saineresse," a 

woman who performs the operation of bleeding comes to the house of a 

burgher, and finds the man and his wife seated on a bench in the yard 

before the hall — 

En mi l'aire de sa meson. 

The lady says she wants bleeding, and takes her up into the soler. 

Montez la. sus en eel solier, 
II m'estuet de vostre mestier. 

They enter, and close the door. It appears by the sequel, that the 

approach to the soler was by a stone flight of steps outside, from which 

they descended into the house — a perrin, as it was called : — 

Si se descendent del perrin, 
Contreval les degrez enfin 
Vindrent errant en la maison. 

It appears that the perrin was outside the wall, separated from it by a 
small space, across which a board was thrown to an entrance. 

In another fabliau, " De la Borgoise d'Orliens," a burgher comes to his 
wife in the disguise of her gallant, and the lady, discovering the fraud, 
locks him up in the soler, pretending he is to wait there till the house- 
hold is in bed — 

Je vous metrai priveement 

En un solier dont j'ai la clef. 

She then goes to meet her ami, and they come from the garden (vergier) 
direct into the chamber without entering the hall. Here she tells him 
to wait while she goes in there (let dedans), to give her people their 
supper, and she leaves him and goes into the hall. The lady 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



afterwards sends her servants to beat her husband, pretending him to 

be an importunate suitor whom she wishes to punish ! " he waits for me 

up that perrin : " — 

La sus m'atent en ce perin. 

Ne souffrez pas que il en isse, 
Ainz l'acueilliez al solier haut. 

They beat him as he descends the stairs, and pursue him into the 
garden, all which passes without entering the lower apartments of the 
house. The soler, or upper part of the house, appears to have been 
considered the place of greatest security — in fact, it could only be 
entered by one door, which was approached by the flight of steps, and 
was therefore more easily defended than the ground-floor. In the 
beautiful story " De l'Ermite qui s'acompaigna a, l'Ange," the hermit and 
his companion seek a night's lodging at the house of a rich but miserly 
usurer, who refuses them admittance into the house, and will only per- 
mit them to sleep under the staircase, in what the story terms an auvent 
or shed. The next morning the hermit's young companion goes up-stairs 
into the soler to find the usurer, who appears to have slept there for 

security — 

Le vallet les degrez monta, 
El solier son hoste trova. 

It was in the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an 

avaricious and inhospitable person, to shut his hall-door and live in the 

soler. In a poem of this period, in which the various vices of the age 

are placed under the ban of excommunication, the miser is thus pointed 

out : — 

Encor escommeni-je plus 

Riche homme qui ferme son huis, 

Et va mengier en solier sus. 

The huis was the door of the hall. The soler appears also to have 
been considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who 
paid well. In the fabliau " Des Trois Avugles de Compiengne," three 
blind men come to the house of a burgher, and require to be treated 
better than usual ; on which he shows them up-stairs — 

En la haute logis les maine. 

A clerc, who follows, after putting his horse in the stable, sits at table 



EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES. 



149 



with his host in the hall, while the three other guests are served " like 
knights " in the soler above — 

Et li avugle du solier 
Furent servi com chevalier. 

During the period of which we are speaking, the richer the house- 
holder, the greater need he had of studying strength and security, and 
hence with him the soler, or upper story, became of more importance, 
and was often made the principal part of the house, at least that in 
which himself and his family placed themselves at night. This was 
especially the case in stone buildings, where the ground-floor was often 
a low vaulted apartment, which seems to have been commonly looked 
upon as a cellar, while the principal room was on the first floor, 
approached usually by a staircase on the outside. A house of this kind 
is represented in one of our cuts, taken from the Bayeux tapestry, where 







No. 94. — Ancient Manor-House, Millichope, Shropshire.. 

the guests are carousing in the room on the first floor. Yet still the 
vaulted room on the ground-floor was perhaps more often considered 
as the public apartment. In this manner the two apartments of the 
house, instead of standing side by side, were raised one upon the other, 
and formed externally a square mass of masonry. Several examples 
of early manor-houses of this description still remain, among which 
one of the most remarkable is that at Millichope in Shropshire, which 



iSo 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



evidently belongs to the latter half of the twelfth century. It has not 
been noticed in any work on domestic architecture, but I am enabled 
to describe it from two private lithographed plates by Mrs Stackhouse 
Acton, of Acton Scott, from which the accompanying cuts are taken. 
The first (No. 94) represents the present outward appearance of the 
ancient building, which is now an adjunct to a farm-house. The plan 
is a rectangle, considerably longer from north to south than in the trans- 
verse direction. The walls are immensely thick on the ground-floor in 
comparison to the size of the building, as will be seen from the plan of 
the ground-floor given in the next cut (No. 95). The original entrance 




No. 95. — Plan of Ground-Floor of House at Millichope. 1 

was at b, by a late Norman arch, slightly ornamented, which is seen in 
the view. To the right of this is seen one of the original windows, also 
round arched. On the north and east sides were two other windows, 
the openings of them all being small towards the exterior, but enlarging 
inwards. The interior must have been extremely dark ; nevertheless it 
contains a fireplace, and was probably the public room. The opening at 
a is merely a modern passage into the farm-house. As this house stands 
on the borders of Wales, and therefore security was the principal con- 
sideration, the staircase, from the thickness of the walls, was safer in- 
side than on the exterior. We accordingly find that it was worked into 
the mass of the wall in the south-west corner, the entrance being at c. 
The steps of the lower part — it was a stone staircase — are concealed or 
destroyed, so that we hardly know how it commenced, but there are 
steps of stone now running up to the soler or upper apartment, as re- 
presented in our plan of the upper floor. This staircase received light 
at the bottom and at the top, by a small loop-hole worked through the 



ANCIENT MANOR-HOUSE AT MILLICHOPE. 



151 



wall. Although the walls were so massive in the lower room, the stair- 
case was secured by extraordinary precautions. At the top of the steps 
at d, again at e, and a third time at/, were strong doors, secured with 
bolts, which it would have required great force to break open. The last of 




No. 96. — Plan of the Upper Floor. 

these doors led into the upper apartment, which was rather larger than 
the lower one, the west wall being here much thinner. This was 
evidently the family apartment ; it had two windows, on the north and 
east sides, each having seats at the side, with ornamentation of early 




No. 97. — Inside of Window at Millichope. 



English character. A view of the northern window from the interior, 
with its seats, is given in our cut, No. 97 j it is the same which is seen 
externally in our sketch of the house ; this room had no fireplace. 
Towards the fourteenth century, the rooms of houses began to be 



152 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



multiplied, and they were often built round a court ; the additions were 
made chiefly to the offices, and to the number of chambers. They were 
still built more of wood than of stone, and the carpenter was the chief 
person employed in their construction. In the fabliau of " Trubert," 
printed by Meon, a duke, intending to build a new house, employs a 
carpenter to make the design, and takes him into his woods to select 
timber for materials. It may give some notion of the simplicity of the 
arrangement of a house, and the small number of rooms, even when 
required for royalty itself, when we state that in the January of 1251, 
King Henry III., intending to visit Hampshire, and requiring a house 
for himself with his queen and court, gave orders to the sheriff of 
Southampton to build at Freemantle a hall, a kitchen, and a chamber 
with an upper story {cum estagio, sometimes called in documents written 
in French chambre estagee), and a chapel on the ground, for the king's 
use ; and a chamber with an upper story, with a chapel at the end of 
the same chamber, for the queen's use. Under the chamber was to be 
made a cellar for the king's wines. 

The chamber had, indeed, now become so important a part of the 
building, that its name was not unusually given to the whole house, 
which, in the documents of the thirteenth century, is sometimes called 
a camera ad estagiam — an upper-storied chamber. Such was the case 
with a house built in 1285 for Edward I. and his queen in the forest at 
W'oolmer, in Hampshire, the account of the expenses of which are 
preserved in the Pipe Rolls. This house was seventy-two feet long, 
and twenty-eight feet wide. It had two chimneys, a chapel, and two 
wardrobes. The chapel and wardrobe had six glazed windows. There 
was also a hall in it, but the two chimneys appear to have belonged to 
the chamber. The windows of the chamber and hall had wooden 
shutters (hostia), but do not appear to have had glass. The kitchen 
was the only other apartment in the house. The ordinary windows of 
a house at this time were not usually glazed ; but they were either 
latticed, or consisted of a mere opening, which was covered by a cloth 
or curtain by day, and was closed by a shutter, which turned upon 
hinges, either sideways, like an ordinary door, or up and down, and 
which seems generally to have opened outwards. The rooms were, in 
this manner, very imperfectly protected against the weather, even in 



EARL Y ENGLISH HO USES. 1 5 3 



palaces. A precept of Henry III. has been quoted, which directs glass 
to be substituted for wood in a window in the queen's wardrobe at the 
Tower, " in order that that chamber might not be so windy ; " and in the 
same reign a charge is made in the accounts relating to the royal manor 
at Kennington, " for closing the windows better than usual (et in 
fenestris melius solito claudendis)." * 

These remarks on the general character of the house are, of course, 
intended to apply to the ordinary dwelling-house, and not to the more 
extensive mansion — which already in the thirteenth century was made 
to surround, wholly or partly, an interior court — or to the castle. These 
more extensive edifices consisted only of a greater accumulation of the 
rooms and details which were found in the smaller house. During the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, no great change took place in the 
general characteristics of a private house. The hall was still the largest 
and most important room, and was now usually raised on an under 
t vaulted room, which, to whatever use it may have been applied, was 
usually called the cellar. Part of it appears to have been sometimes 
employed as the stable. In the carpenter's house, in Chaucer's 
" Millere's Tale," the hall, which is evidently the main part of the build- 
ing, was open to the roof, with cross-beams, on which they hanged the 
troughs, and the stable was attached to it, and intervened between the 
house and the garden. In the " Coke's Tale of Gamelyn," the hall has its 
posts, or columns, and there is attached to it a room called a spence, 
which was more frequently called the buttery, in which victuals of 
different kinds, and the wine and plate, were locked up, and the man 
who had the charge of it was called the spencer or despenser, which it is 
hardly necessary to say was the origin of two common English surnames. 
The gentleman's house, in Chaucer's " Sompnoure's Tale," was a "large 
halle," and is called a court, which had now become an ordinary term 
for a manor-house. 

A stordy paas doun to the court he goth, 
Wrier as ther wonyd a man of gret honour. 

— Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 7744. 

In the "Nonne Preste's Tale," the poor widow's cottage also has its hall 

* In the description of a splendid hall, in the English metrical romance of Kyng 
Alisaunder (Weber, i. 312), the windows are made "of riche glas." 



154 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

and hour, or chamber, although they were all sooty, of course, from the 
fires, which had no chimney to carry off the smoke. 

Ful sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle. — lb. I. 16,318. 

This house was situated within a court, or as it is called, yard, which 
was enclosed by a hedge of sticks, and by a ditch : — 

A yerd sche had, enclosed al aboute 
With stikkes, and a drye dich withoute. 

In the " Tale of Gamelyn," the yard, or court, as we use the Anglo-Saxon 
or the Anglo-Norman name for it, had a stronger fence, with a gate and 
wicket fastened by lock and bolt, and apparently a lodge for the porter. 
In the yard there was a draw-well, seven fathoms deep. While 
Gamelyn took possession of the hall, his brother shut himself up in the 
cellar, which could be made a safe place of refuge when all the rest of 
the house was in the power of an enemy. The yard here had also a 
postern-gate. In the carpenter's house, in Chaucer's " Millere's Tale," 
the chamber has a low window, to swing outwardly — 

So mote I thryve, I schal at cokkes crowe 
Ful pryvely go knokke at his wyndowe, 
That stant ful lowe upon his bowres wal — 

which is immediately afterwards called the " schot wyndowe " — 
Unto his brest it raught, it was so lowe. 

A new apartment had now been added to the house, called in Anglo- 
Norman a parlour (parloir), because it was literally the talking-room. 
It belonged originally to the monastic houses, where the parlour was 
the room for receiving people who came to converse on business, and 
when introduced into private houses, it was a sort of secondary hall, 
where visitors might be received more privately than in the great hall, 
and yet with less familiarity than in the chamber. In the story of " Sir 
Cleges/' the knight finds the king seated in his parlour, and listening to 
a harper. In a Latin document of the year 1473, printed in Rymer's 
Foedera, a citizen of London has, in his mansion-house there, a parlour 
adjoining the garden (in quadam parlura adjacente gardind). 

Houses were, as I have before stated, usually built in great part of 
timber, and it was only where unusual strength was required, or else 
from a spirit of ostentation, that they were made of stone. There 



EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES. 



155 




No. 98. — A Cupboard Door. 



appear to have been very few fixtures in the inside, and as furniture 
was scanty, the rooms must have 
appeared very bare. In timber 
houses, of course, it was not easy 
to make cupboards or closets in 
the walls, but this was not the case 
when they were built of stone. 
Even in the latter case, however, 
the walls appear not to have been 
much excavated for such purposes. 
Our cut, No. 98, represents a cup- 
board door, taken from an illumi- 
nated manuscript of the thirteenth 
century in the Bodleian Library at 

Oxford ; it is curious for its ironwork, especially the lock and key. The 
•smaller articles of domestic use were usually deposited in chests, or placed 
upon sideboards and movable stands. In the houses of the wealthy a 
separate room was built for the wardrobe. 

The accompanying figure (cut No. 99), taken from a manuscript in 
the Cottonian Library (Nero, D. vii.), re- 
presents the cellarer, or house-steward, of 
the Abbey of St Alban's, in the fourteenth 
century, carrying the keys of the cellar 
door, which appear to be of remarkably 
large dimensions ; he holds the two keys 
in one hand, and a purse, or rather a bag, 
of money in the other, the symbols of his 
office. A drawing in the same MS., copied 
in our cut No. 100, shows us the entrance- 
door to an ordinary house, with a soler, or 
upper room, above. The individual in- 
tended to be represented was Alan Middle- 
ton, who is recorded in the catalogue of 
officers of St Alban's as " collector of 
rents of the obedientiaries of that monas- 
tery, and especially of those of the bursar." A small tonsure denotes him 




No. 99. — The Cellarer of St Albans. 



i S 6 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



as a monastic officer, while the penner and inkhorn at his girdle denote 
the nature of his office ; and he is just opening the door of one of the 
abbey tenants to perform his function. The door is intended to be re- 
presented opening outwards. These Benedictines of St Alban's have also 




No. ioo. — Alan Middleton. 

immortalised another of their inferior officers, Walterus de Hamuntes- 
ham, who was attacked and grievously wounded by the rabble of St 
Alban's, while standing up for the rights and liberties of the Church. 
He appears (cut No. 101) to be attempting to gain shelter in a house, 
which also has a soler. 

There was one fixture in the interior of the house, which is often 
mentioned in old writers, and must not be overlooked. It was frequently 
called a perche (fiertica), and consisted of a wooden frame fixed to the 
wall, for the purpose of hanging up articles of clothing and various other 
things. The curious tract of Alexander Neckham, entitled " Summa 
de nominibus utensilium," states that each chamber should have two 
perches, one on which the domestic birds, hawks, and falcons, were to 
sit, the other for suspending shirts, kerchiefs, breeches, capes, mantles, 
and other articles of clothing. In reference to the latter usage, one of 
the mediaeval Latin poets has the memorial line — 

Pertica diversos pannos retinere solebat. 

Our cut, No. 102, taken from a manuscript of the "Roman de la Rose," 



PERCHES. 



157 



written in the fourteenth century, and now preserved in the National 
Library in Paris (No. 6985, fol. 2, v°), represents a perche, with two 




No. 101. — Walter de Hamuntesham attacked by a Mob. 

garments suspended upon it. The one represented in our next cut (No. 
103) is of rather a different form, and is made to support the arms of a 
knight, his helmet, sword, and shield, and his coat of mail ; but how the 
sword and helmet are attached to it is far from clear. This example is 





No. 102. — A Perche. No. 103. — Another Perche. 

taken from an illuminated manuscript of a well-known work by Guillaume 
de Deguilleville, " Le Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine," of the latter end of 
the fourteenth century, also preserved in the French National Library 
(No. 6988) : another copy of the same work, preserved in the same 
great collection (No. 7210), but of the fifteenth century, gives a still 
more perfect representation of the perche, supporting, as in the last 



i S 8 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



example, a helmet, a shield, and coats of mail. In the foreground, a 
queen is depositing the staff and scrip of a hermit in a chest, for greater 
security. This subject is represented in our cut No. 104. 




No. 104. — Scene in a Chamber. 

( Furniture of every kind continued to be rare, and chairs were by no 
means common articles in ordinary houses. In the chambers, seats 
were made in the masonry by the side of the windows, as represented in 
our cut No. 97, and sometimes along the walls. Common benches were 




No. 105. — A Bench on Trestles. 



the usual seats, and these were often formed by merely laying a plank 
upon two trestles. Such a bench is probably represented in the ac- 
companying cut (No. 105), taken from a manuscript of the romance of 



TABLES. 



159 



"Tristan," of the fourteenth century, preserved in the National Library 
at Paris (No. 7178). Tables were made in the same manner. We now, 
however, find not unfrequent mention of a table dormant in the hall, 
which was, of course, a table fixed to the spot, and which was not taken 
away like the others : it was probably the great table of the dais, or 




No. 106. — A Table on Trestles. 

upper end of the hall. To " begin the table dormant " was a popular 
phrase, apparently equivalent to taking the first place at the feast. 
Chaucer, in the prologue to the " Canterbury Tales," describing the 
profuse hospitality of the Frankeleyn, says — 

His table dormant in his halle always 
Stood redy covered al the longe day. 

Yet during the whole of this period, it continued to be the common 
practice to make the table for a meal by merely laying a board upon 
trestles. Our cut, No. 106, is a very curious representation of such a table 
from a manuscript of the thirteenth century, preserved in the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford (MS. Arch. A. 154). It must be understood that 
the objects which are ranged alternately with the drinking-vessels are 
loaves of bread, not plates. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Old English Hall. — The Kitchen audits Circumstances. — 
The Dinner- Table. — Minstrelsy. 

S I have already stated, the hall continued to be the most impor- 
tant part of the house ; and in large mansions it was made of 
proportional dimensions. It was a general place of rendezvous for the 
household, especially for the retainers and followers, and in the even- 
ing it seems usually to have been left entirely to them, and they made 
their beds and passed the night in it. Strangers or visitors were brought 
into the hall. In the curious old poem edited by Mr Halliwell, entitled 
" The Boke of Curtasye," we find especial directions on this subject. 
When a gentleman or yeoman came to the house of another, he was 
directed to leave his weapons with the porter at the outward gate or 
wicket, before he entered. It appears to have been the etiquette that 
if the person thus presenting himself were of higher rank than the person 
he visited, the latter should go out to receive him at the gate ; if the 
contrary, the visitor was admitted through the gate, and proceeded to 

the hall. 

Whanne thou comes to a lordis gate, 

The porter thou shalle fynde therate ; 

Take {give) hym thow shalt thy wepyn tho {then), 

And aske hym leve in to go. 

. . .yf he be of logh {low) degre, 
Than hym falles to come to the. 

At the hall-door the visitor was to take off his hood and gloves — 

. When thow come tho halle dor to, 
Do of thy hode, thy gloves also. 

If, when he entered the hall, the visitor found the family at meat, he 



STRANGERS. 161 

stood at the bottom of the apartment in a respectful attitude, till the 
lord of the house sent a servant to lead him to a place where he was to 
sit at table. As you descended lower in society, such ceremonies were 
less observed ; and the clergy in general seem to have been allowed 
a much greater licence than the laity. In the " Sompnoure's Tale," in 
Chaucer, when the friar, who has received an insult from an inferior 
inhabitant, goes " to the court " to complain to the lord of the village, 
he finds the latter in his hall at the dinner table — 

This frere com, as he were in a rage, 
Wher that this lord sat etyng at his bord. 

— Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 7748. 

The lord, surprised at the agitation in the countenance of the friar, who 

had come in without any sort of introduction, invites him to sit down, 

and inquires into his business. There is a scene in the early English 

metrical romance of "Ipomydon," in which this hero and his preceptor 

Tholoman go to the residence of the heiress of Calabria. At the castle 

gate they were stopped by the porter, whom they ask to announce them 

in the hall : — 

The porter to theyme they gan calle, 
And prayd hym, Go into the halle, 
And say thy lady gent and fre, 
That come ar men of ferre contre, 
And, if it plese hyr, we wold hyr prey 
That we myght ete with hyr to-day. 

— Weber, Metr. Rom. ii. 290. 

The porter " courteously " undertook the message, and, at the immediate 
order of the lady, who was sitting at her meat, he went back, took 
charge of their horses and pages, and introduced them into the hall. 
Then they asked to be taken into the lady's service, who accepted their 
offer, and invited them to take their place at the dinner : — 

He thankid the lady cortesly, 
She comandyth hym to the mete ; 
But, or he satte in any sete, 
He saluted theym grate and smalle, 
As a gentille man shuld in halle. 

— Weber, ii. 292. 

Perhaps, before entering the mediaeval hall, we shall do well to give 
a glance at the kitchen. It is an opinion, which has not unfrequently 
been entertained, that living in the Middle Ages was coarse and not 



1 62 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

elaborate ; and that old English fare consisted chiefly in roast beef and 
plum-pudding. That nothing, however, could be more incorrect is fully 
proved by the rather numerous mediaeval cookery books which are still 
preserved, and which contain chiefly directions for made dishes, many 
of them very complicated, and, to appearance, extremely delicate. The 
office of cook, indeed, was one of great importance, and was well paid ; 
and the kitchens of the aristocracy were very extensive, and were fur- 
nished with a considerable variety of implements of cookery. On 
account, no doubt, of this importance, Alexander Neckam, although an 
ecclesiastic, commences his vocabulary (or, as it is commonly entitled, 
" Liber de Utensilibus"), compiled in the latter part of the twelfth cen- 
tury, with an account of the kitchen and its furniture. He enumerates, 
among other objects, a table for chopping and mincing herbs and vege- 
tables ; pots, trivets or tripods, an axe, a mortar and pestle, a mover, 
or pot-stick, for stirring, a crook or pot-hook [uncus), a caldron, a frying- 
pan, a gridiron, a posnet or saucepan, a dish, a platter, a saucer, or 
vessel for mixing sauce, a hand-mill, a pepper-mill, a mier, or instrument 
for reducing bread to crumbs. John de Garlande, in his " Dictionarius," 
composed towards the middle of the thirteenth century, gives a similar 
enumeration ; and a comparison of the vocabularies of the fifteenth 
century shows that the arrangements of the kitchen had undergone 
little change during the intervening period. From these vocabularies 
the following list of kitchen utensils is gathered : — a brandreth, or iron 
tripod, for supporting the caldron over the fire ; a caldron, a dressing- 
board and dressing-knife, a brass-pot, a posnet, a frying-pan, a gridiron, 
or, as it is sometimes called, a roasting-iron ■ a spit, a "gobard," ex- 
plained in the MS. by ipegurgium ; a mier, a flesh-hook, a scummer, a 
ladle, a pot-stick, a slice for turning meat in the frying-pan, a pot-hookj 
a mortar and pestle, a pepper-quern, a platter, a saucer. 

The older illuminated manuscripts are rarely so elaborate as to furnish 
us with representations of all these kitchen implements ; and, in fact, it 
is not in the more elaborately illuminated manuscripts that kitchen scenes 
are often found. But we meet with representations of some of them in 
artistic sketches of a less elaborate character, though these are generally 
connected with the less refined processes of cookery. The mediaeval, 
landlords were obliged to consume the produce of the land on their own 



POTS AND BELLOWS. 



163 



estates, and, for this and other very cogent reasons, a large proportion 
of the provisions in ordinary use consisted of salted meat, which was laid 
up in store in vast quantities in the baronial larders. Hence boiling was 
a much more common method of cooking meat than roasting, for which, 
indeed, the mediaeval fire, placed on the ground, was much less con- 
venient ; it is, no doubt, for this reason that the cook is most frequently 
represented in the mediaeval drawings with the caldron on the fire. In 
some instances, chiefly of the fifteenth century, the caldron is supported 
from above by a pot-hook, but more usually it stands over the fire upon 
three legs of its own, or upon a three-legged frame. A manuscript in 
the British Museum of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 10, E. iv.), 
belonging formerly to the monastery of St Bartholomew in Smithfield, con- 
tains a series of such illustrations, from which the following are selected. 
In the first of these (No. 107) it is 
evidently a three-legged caldron 
which stands over the fire, to 
increase the heat of which the 
cook makes use of a pair of bel- 
lows, which bears a remarkably 
close resemblance to the similar 
articles made in modern times. 
Bellows were certainly in com- 




No. 107.— Making the Pot Boil. 



raon use in Anglo-Saxon times, for the name is Anglo-Saxon, bcelg, bcelig, 




No. 108.— The Holy- Water Clerc and the Cook. 

and bylig; but as the original meaning of this word was merely a bag, it 
is probable that the early Anglo-Saxon bellows was of very rude character : 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



it was sometimes distinguished by the compound name, blast-bcelg, a blast- 
bag, or bellows. Our second example from this MS. (cut No. 108) is one 
of a series of designs belonging to some mediaeval story or legend, with 
which I am not acquainted. A young man carrying the vessel for the 
holy water, and the aspersoir with which it was sprinkled over the people, 



^N/V 




No. 109. — Interested Friendship. 



and who may therefore be supposed to be the holy-water clerc, is mak- 
ing acquaintance with the female cook. The latter seems to have been 




No. no. — A Kitchen Scene. 



interrupted in the act of taking some object out of the caldron with a 
flesh-hook. The caldron here again is three-legged. In the sequel, the 






BOILING AND ROASTING. 



165 



acquaintance between the cook and the holy-water clerc appears to have 
ripened into love ; but we may presume, from the manner in which it 
is represented (No. 109), that this love was not of a very disinterested 
character on the part of the clerc, for he is taking advantage of her 
affection to steal the animal which she is boiling in the caldron. The 
conventional manner in which the animal seems to be drawn, renders it 
difficult to decide what that animal is. The mediaeval artists show a 
taste for playful delineations of this kind, which occur not unfrequently 
in illuminated manuscripts, and in carvings and sculptures. One of the 
stalls in Hereford cathedral, copied in the accompanying cut (No. no), 
represents a scene of this descrip- 
tion. A man is attempting to 
take liberties with the cook, who 
has in return thrown a platter at 
his head. In our next cut (No. 
in), taken from another MS. in 
the British Museum, also of the 
fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 16, 
E. viii.), the object cooked in the 
caldron is a boar's head, which 
the co&k, an ill-favoured and hump- 
backed man, is placing on a dish 




No. in.— The Boar's Head. 



to be carried to the table. The caldron, in this instance, appears to be 
intended to have been of more ornamental character than the others. A 
It will have been remarked that in most of these pictures the process 
of cookery appears to have been carried on in the open air, for, in one 
instance, a tree stands not far from the caldron. This appears, indeed, 
to have been frequently the case, and there can be no doubt that it 
was intended to be so represented in our next cut (No. 112), taken 
from the well-known manuscript of the romance of " Alexander," in the 
Bodleian Library, at Oxford. We have here the two processes of boil- 
ing and roasting, but the latter is only employed for fowls (geese in 
this case). While the cook is basting them, the quisiron, or kitchen- 
boy, is turning the spit, which is placed in a very curious manner 
on one leg of the tripod or trivet, on which the caldron is here sup- 
ported. The building to the right is shown by the sign to be an inn, and 



1 66 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



we are, probably, to suppose that this out-of-door cooking is required 
by some unusual festivity. 




No. 112. — Boiling and Roasting. 

Although meat was, doubtless, sometimes roasted, this process seems 
to have been much more commonly applied to poultry and game, and 
even fresh meat was very usually boiled. One cause of this may, perhaps, 
have been that it seems to have been a common practice to eat the meat, 
and even game, fresh killed— the beef or mutton seems to have been 
often killed for the occasion on the day it was eaten. In the old fabliau 
of the " Bouchier d' Abbeville " (Barbazan, torn. iv. p. 6), the butcher, 
having come to Bailueil late in the evening, and obtained a night's 
lodging at the priest's, kills his sheep for the supper. The shoulders 
were to be roasted, the rest, as it appears, was recommended to be 
boiled. The butchers, indeed, seem usually to have done their work 
in the kitchen, and to have killed and cut up the animals for the occa- 
sion. There is a curious story in the English " Gesta Romanorum" (edited 
by Sir Frederic Madden), which illustrates this practice. " Csesar was 
emperor of Rome, that had a forest, in the which he had planted vines 



A CURIOUS STORY. 167 



and other divers trees many ; and he ordained over his forest a steward, 
whose name was Jonatas, bidding him, upon pain, to keep the vines 
and the plants. It fell, after this ordinance of the emperor, that Jonatas 
took the care of the forest ; and upon a day a swine came into the forest, 
the new plants he rooted up. When Jonatas saw the swine enter, he 
cut off his tail, and the swine made a cry, and went out. Nevertheless, 
he entered again, and did much harm in the forest. When Jonatas saw 
that, he cut off his left ear ; and the hog made a great cry, and went 
out. Notwithstanding this, he entered again the third day ; and Jonatas 
saw him, and cut off his right ear, and with a horrible cry he went out. 
Yet the fourth day the swine re-entered the forest, and did much damage. 
When Jonatas saw that the hog would not be warned, he smote him 
through with his spear, and slew him, and delivered the body to the 
cook for to array the next day to the emperor's meat. But when the 
emperor was served of this swine, he asked of his servants, ' Where is 
the heart of this swine ? ' — because the emperor loved the heart best of 
any beast, and more than all the beast. The servants asked the cook 
where the heart of the swine was, for the lord inquired after it. The 
cook, when he had arrayed the heart, saw it was good and fat, and eat 
it ; and he said to the servants, ' Say to the emperor that the hog had 
no heart.' The emperor said, ' It may not be j and therefore say to 
him, upon pain of death, that he send me the heart of the swine, for 
there is no beast in all the world without a heart.' The servants went 
to the cook with the emperor's orders ; and he replied, ' Say to my lord, 
but if I prove mightily by clear reasons that the swine had no heart, I 
put me fully to his will, to do with me as he likes.' The emperor, when 
he heard this, assigned him a day to answer. When the day was come, 
the cook, with a high voice, said before all men, ' My lord, this is the 
day of my answer. First I shall show you that the swine had no heart ; 
this is the reason. Every thought cometh from the heart, therefore every 
man or beast feeleth good or evil ; it followeth of necessity that by this 
the heart thinketh.' The emperor said, ' That is truth.' ' Then,' said 
the cook, 'now shall I show by reasons that the swine had no heart. 
First he entered the forest, and the steward cut off his tail ; if he had 
had a heart, he should have thought on his tail that was lost, but he 
thought not thereupon, for afterwards he entered the forest, and the 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



forester cut off his left ear. If he had had a heart, he should have 
thought on his left ear, but he thought not, for the third time he entered 
the forest. That saw the forester, and cut off his right ear ; where, if he 
had had a heart, he should have thought that he had lost his tail and 
both his ears, and never should have gone again where he had so many- 
evils. But yet the fourth time he entered the forest, and the steward 
saw that, and slew him, and delivered him to me to array to your meat. 
Here may ye see, my lord, that I have shown, by worthy reasons, that 
the swine had no heart.' And thus escaped the cook." 

The story which follows this in the " Gesta," tells of an emperor named 
" Alexaundre/' " who of great need ordained for a law, that no man 
should turn the plaice in his dish, but that he should only eat the white 
side, and in no wise the black side ; and if any man did the contrary, 
he should die ! " It is hardly necessary to remark, that fish was a 





No. 173. — A Present of Fish. 



No. 114.— A Pot and Platter. 



great article, of consumption in the Middle Ages, and especially 
among the ecclesiastics and monks. Our cut (No. 113), from a 
manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Harl. 
No. 1527), represents probably the steward of a monastery receiving a 
present of fish. 

In large houses, and on great occasions, the various meats and dishes 
were carried from the kitchen to the hall with extraordinary ceremony 
by the servants of the kitchen, who delivered them at the entrance of 
the hall to other attendants of a higher class, who alone were allowed to 
approach the tables. Our cut No. 114, from MS. Reg. 10, E. iv., repre- 
sents one of these servants carrying a pot and platter, or stand for the 



THE DINNER-TABLE. 



pot, which, perhaps, contained gravy or soup. The roasts appear to 
have been usually carried into the hall on the spits, which, among people 
of great rank, were sometimes made of silver ; and the guests at table 
seem to have torn, or cut, from the spit what they wanted. Several 
early illuminations represent this practice of people helping them- 
selves from the spits, and it is alluded to, not very unfrequently, in the 
mediaeval writers. In the romance of " Parise la Duchesse," when the 
servants enter the hall with the meats for the table, one is described as 
carrying a roasted peacock on a spit : — 

Atant ez les serjanz qui portent le mangier ; 

Li uns porte .i. paon roti en un astier. — Romans de Parise, p. 172. 

In the romance of " Garin le Loherain," on an occasion when a 
quarrel arose in the hall at the beginning of the dinner, the Duke Begon, 
for want of other weapons, snatched from the hands of one of the attend- 
ants a long spit " full of plovers, which were hot and roasted : " — 

Li dus avoit un grant hastier saisi, 

Plain de ploviers, qui chaut sunt et rosti. — Romans de Garin, ii. 19. 

But the most curious illustration of the universality of this practice is 
found in a Latin story, probably of the thirteenth century, in which we 
are told of a man who had a glutton for his wife. One day he roasted 
for their dinner a fowl, and when they had sat down at the table, the 
wife said, " Give me a wing ?" The husband gave her the wing ; .and, 
at her demand, all the other members in succession, until she had 
devoured the whole fowl herself, at which, no longer able to contain his 
anger, he said, " Lo, you have eaten the whole fowl yourself, and 
nothing remains but the spit, which it is but right that you should taste 
also." And thereupon he took the spit, and beat her severely with it. 

Our cut (No. 115), taken from a large illumination, given from a 
manuscript of the fifteenth century by the late M. du Sommerard, in his 
great work on mediaeval art, represents the servants of the hall, headed 
by the steward, or mcdtre d' hotel, with his rod of office, bringing the 
dishes to the table in formal procession. Their approach and arrival 
were usually announced by the sounding of trumpets and music. The 
servants were often preceded by music, as we see in our cut No. 116, 
taken from a very fine MS. of the early part of the fourteenth century, 



170 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2, B. vii.). A representation of a 
similar scene occurs at the foot of the large Flemish brass of Robert 
Braunche and his two wives at St Margaret's Church, Lynn, which is 




No. 115. — Bringing the Dinner into Hall. 



intended as a delineation of a feast given by the corporation of, Lynn 
to King Edward III. Servants from both sides of the picture are 
bringing in that famous dish of chivalry, the peacock with his tail dis- 
played ; and two bands of minstrels are ushering in the banquet with 




No 116. — Serving in Hall.. 

their strains ; the date of the brass is about a.d. 1364. Those who 
served at the table itself, whose business was chiefly to carve and 
present the wine, were of still higher rank — never less than esquires — 
and often, in the halls of princes and great chiefs, nobles and barons. 
The meal itself was conducted with the same degree of ceremony, of 



THE DINNER-TABLE. 171 



which a vivid picture may be drawn from the directions given in the 
work called the " Menagier de Paris," composed about the year 1393. 
When it was announced that the dinner was ready, the guests advanced 
to the hall, led ceremoniously by two maltres d' hotel, who showed them 
their places, and served them with water to wash their hands before 
they began. They found the tables spread with fine table-cloths, and 
covered with a profusion of richly-ornamented plate, consisting of salt- 
cellars, goblets, pots or cups for drinking, spoons, &c. At the high 
table, the meats were eaten from slices of bread,' called trenchers 
(tranchoirs), which, after the meats were eaten, were thrown into vessels 
called couloueres. In a conspicuous part of the hall stood the dresser 
or cupboard, which was covered with vessels of plate, which two 
esquires carried thence to the table, to replace those which were 
emptied. Two other esquires were occupied in bringing wine to the 
dresser, from whence it was served to the guests at the tables. The 
dishes, forming a number of courses, varying according to the occasion, 
were brought in by valets, led by two esquires. An asseeur, or placer, 
took the dishes from the hands of the valets, and arranged them in their 
places on the table. After these courses, fresh table-cloths were laid, 
and the entremets were brought, consisting of sweets, jellies, &c, many 
of them moulded into elegant or fantastic forms ; and, in the middle of 
the table, raised above the rest, were placed a swan, peacocks, or 
pheasants, dressed up in their feathers, with their beaks and feet gilt. 
In less sumptuous entertainments the expensive course of entremets was 
usually omitted. Last of all came the dessert, consisting of cheese, 
confectionaries, fruit, &c, concluded by what was called the issue 
(departure from table), consisting usually of a draught of hypocras, and 
the boute-hors (turn out), wine and spices served round, which termin- 
ated the repast. The guests then washed their hands, and repaired 
into another room, where they were served with wine and sweetmeats, 
and, after a short time, separated. The dinner, served slowly and 
ceremoniously, must have occupied a considerable length of time. 
After the guests had left the hall, the servers and attendants took their 
places at the tables. 

The furniture of the hall was simple, and consisted of but a few 
articles. In large residences, the floor at the upper end of the hall was 



172 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



raised, and was called the dais. On this the chief table was placed, 
stretching lengthways across the hall. The subordinate tables were 
arranged below, down each side of the hall. In the middle was 
generally the fire, sometimes in an iron grate. At the upper end of 
the hall there was often a cupboard or a dresser for the plate, &c. 
The tables were still merely boards placed on tressels, though the table 
dormant, or stationary table, began to be more common. Perhaps the 
large table on the dais was generally a table dormant. The seats were 
merely benches or forms, except the principal seat against the wall on 
the dais, which was often in the form of a settle, with back and elbows. 
Such a seat is represented in our cut No. 117, taken from a manuscript 
of the romance of " Meliadus," in the National Library at Paris, No. 




No. 117. — The Seat on the Dais. 



6961. On special occasions, the hall was hung round with tapestry, or 
curtains, which were kept for that purpose, and one of these curtains 
seems commonly to have been suspended against the wall behind the 



THE HOUR FOR DINNER. 173 



dais. A carpet was sometimes laid on the floor, which, however, was 

more usually spread with rushes. Sometimes, in the illuminations, the 

floor appears to be paved with ornamental tiles, without carpet or 

rushes. It was also not unusual to bring a chair into the hall as a 

mark of particular respect. Thus, in the English metrical romance of 

" Sir Isumbras : " — 

The riche qwene in haulle was sett, 
Knyghttes hir serves to handes and. fete, 

Were clede in robis of palle ; 
In the floure a clothe was layde, 
" This poore palmere," the stewarde sayde, 

" Salle sytte abowene yow alle." 
Mete and drynke was forthe broghte, 
Sir Isambrace sett and ete noghte, 

Bot hiked abowte in the haulle. 

So lange he satt and ete noghte, 
That the lady grete wondir thoghte, 
And tille a knyghte gane saye, 
" Bryng a chayere and a qwyschene (cztshion), 
And sett yone poore palmere therin." 



A riche chayere than was ther fett, 
This poore palmere therin was sett, 
He tolde hir of his laye. 



Until comparatively a very recent date, the hour of dinner, even 

among the highest classes of society, was ten o'clock in the' forenoon. 

There was an old proverb which defined the divisions of the domestic 

day as follows : — 

Lever a. six, disner a. dix, 
Souper a six, coucher a dix — 

which is preserved in a still older and more complete form as follows : — 

Lever a. cinq, diner a neuf, 
Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf, 
Fait vivre d'ans nonante et neuf. 

Five o'clock was the well-known hour of the afternoon meal ; and nine 
seems formerly to have been an ordinary hour for dinner. In the time 
of Chaucer, the hour of prime appears to have been the usual dinner 
hour, which perhaps meant nine o'clock. At least the monk, in the 
" Schipmanne's Tale," calls for dinner at prime : — 



174 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



' ' Goth now your way," quod he, ' ' al stille and softe, 
And let us dyne as sOne as ye may, 
For by my chilindre it is prime of day." 

And the lady to whom this is addressed, in reply, expresses impatience 
lest they should pass the hour. The dinner appears to have been usually 
announced by the blowing of horns. In the romance of " Richard Coeur 
de Lion," on the arrival of visitors, the tables were laid out for dinner — 

They sette tresteles, and layde a borde ; 

Trumpes begonne for to blowe.- — Weber, ii. 7. 

Before the meal, each guest was served with water to wash. It was 
the business of the ewer to serve the guests with water for this purpose, 
which he did with a jug and basin, while another attendant stood by 
with a towel. Our cut, No. 118, represents this process ; it is taken from 




No. 118. — Washing before Dinner. 

a fine manuscript of the " Livre de la Vie Humaine," preserved in the 
National Library in Paris, No. 6988. In the originals of this group, the 
jug and basin are represented as of gold. In the copy of the " Seven 
Sages," printed by Weber (p. 148), the preparations for a dinner are 
thus described : — 

Thai set trestes, and bordes on layd ; 
Thai spred clathes, and salt on set, 
And made redy unto the mete ; 
Thai set forth water and towelle. 

The company, however, sometimes washed before going to the table, 
and for this purpose there were lavours, or lavatories, in the hall itself, 



THE DINNER-TABLE. 175 



or sometimes outside. The signal for washing was then given by the 
blowing of trumpets, or by the music of the minstrels. Thus, in the 
English metrical romance of " Richard Coeur de Lion," 

At noon a laver the waytes blevve, 

meaning, of course, the canonical hour of none. Grace was also said at 
the commencement, or at the end, of the meal, but this part of the cere- 
mony is but slightly alluded to in the old writers. 

Having washed, the guests seated themselves at table. Then the 
attendants spread the cloths over the tables ; they then placed on them 
the salt-cellars and the knives ; and next the bread and the wine in 
drinking cups. All this is duly described in the following lines of an 

old romance : — 

Quant lave orent, si s' asistrent, 
Et li serjant les napes mistrent, 
Desus les dobliers blans et biax, 
Les saliers et les coutiax, 
Apres lou pain, puis lo vin 
En copes d'argent et d'or fin. 

Spoons were also usually placed on the table, but there were no forks, 
the guests using their fingers instead, which was the reason they were so 
particular in washing before and after meat. The tables being thus 
arranged, it remained for the cooks to serve up the various prepared 
dishes. 

At table the guests were not only placed in couples, but they also eat 
in couples, two being served with the same food and in the same plate. 
This practice is frequently alluded to in the early romances and fabliaux. 
In general the arrangement of the couples was not left to mere chance, 
but individuals who were known to be attached to each other, or who 
were near relatives, were placed together. In the poem of " La Mule 
sanz Frain," the lady of the castle makes Sir Gawain sit by her side, and 
eat out of the same plate with her, as an act of friendly courtesy. In 
the fabliau of Trubert, a woman, taken into the household of a duke, is 
seated at table beside the duke's daughter, and eats out of the same 
plate with 'her, because the young lady had conceived an affectionate 
feeling for the visitor. So, again, in the story of the provost of Aquilee, 
the provost's lady, receiving a visitor sent by her husband (who was 



176 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

absent), placed him at table beside her, to eat with her, and the rest of 
the party were similarly seated, "two and two : " — 

La dame premiere s'assist, 

Son hoste lez lui seoir fist, 

Car mengier voloit avec lui ; 

Li autre furent dui et dui. — Meon, Fabliaux, ii. 192. 

In one of the stories in the early English " Gesta Romanorum," an earl 
and his son, who dine at the emperor's table, are seated together, and 
are served with one plate, a fish between them. The practice was, in- 
deed, so general, that the phrase " to eat in the same dish " {manger 
dans la meme ecuette), became proverbial for intimate friendship between 
two persons. 

There was another practice relating to the table, already alluded to, 
which must not be overlooked. It must have been remarked that, in the 
illuminations of contemporary manuscripts which represent dinner scenes, 
the guests are rarely represented as eating from plates. In fact, only 
certain articles were served in plates. Loaves were made of a secondary 
quality of flour, and these were first pared, and then cut into thick slices, 
which were called in French, tranchoirs, and in English, trenchers, because 
they were to be carved upon. The portions of meat were served to the 
guests on these tranchoirs, and they cut it upon them as they eat it. 
The gravy, of course, went into the bread, which the guest sometimes, 
perhaps always at an earlier period, eat after the meat, but in later times, 
and at the tables of the great, it appears to have been more frequently 
sent away to the alms-basket, from which the leavings of the table were 
distributed to the poor at the gate. All the bread used at table seems 
to have been pared before it was cut, and the parings were thrown into 
the alms-dish. Walter de Bibblesworth, in the latter part of the thir- 
teenth century, among other directions for the laying out of the table, 
says, " Cut the bread which is pared, and let the parings be given to the 

alms ; ' — 

Tayllet le payn ke est paree, 
Les biseaus a l'anioyne soyt done. 

The practice is alluded to in the romance of " Sir Tristrem " (fytte i. 

st. 1.)— 

The kyng no seyd no more, 

Bot wesche and yede {went) to mete ; 



THE DINNER-TABLE. 



177 



Bred thai parol and schare {cut), 
Ynough thai hadde at ete. 

It was the duty of the almoner to say grace. The following directions 
are given in the " Boke of Curtasye " (p. 30) : — ■ 

The aumenere by this hathe sayde grace, 

And the almes-dysshe hase sett in place ; 

Therin the karver a lofe schalle sette, 

To serve God fyrst withouten lette ; 

These othere lofes he parys aboute, 

Lays hit myd {with) dysshe, withouten doute. 

The use of the tranchoir, which Froissart calls a tailloir, is not unfre- 
quently alluded to in the older French writers. That writer tells the 




No. 119.- — A Dinner Scene. 

story of a prince who, having received poison in a powder, and suspect- 
ing it, put it on a tailloir of bread, and thus gave it to a dog to eat. 
One of the French poets of the fifteenth century, Martial de Paris, speak- 
ing against the extravagant tables kept by the bishops at that time, ex- 
claims, " Alas J what have the poor ? They have only the tranchoirs of 
bread which remain on the table." An ordinance of the Dauphin Hum- 
bert II., of the date of 1336, orders that there should be served to him 
at table every day " loaves of white bread for the mouth, and four small 
loaves to serve for tranchoirs " {pro incisorio faciendo). For great 
people, a silver platter was often put under the tranchoir, and it was 
probably from the extension of that practice that the tranchoirs became 
ultimately abandoned, and the platters took their place. 



M 



i 7 8 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



I give three examples of dinner-scenes, from manuscripts of the four- 
teenth century. The first, cut No. 119 (on the previous page), is taken 
from a manuscript belonging to the National Library in Paris, No. 7210, 




No. 120. — A King at Dinner. 

containing the " Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine." The party are eating 
fish, or rather have been eating them, for the bones and remnants are 
strewed over the table. We have, in addition to these, the bread, 
knives, salt-cellars, and cups ; and on the ground a remarkable collec- 
tion of jugs for holding the liquors. Our second example, cut No. 120, 
is taken from an illuminated manuscript of the romance of " Meliadus," 
preserved in the British Museum (Additional MS., No. 12,228). We 
have here the curtain or tapestry hung behind the single table. The 
man to the left is probably the steward, or the superior of the hall ; next 
to him is the cup-bearer serving the liquor ; further to the right we have 
the carver cutting the meat ; and last of all the cook bringing in an- 
other dish. The table is laid much in the same manner in our third 
example, cut No. 121. We have again the cups and the bread, the 
latter in round cakes ; in our second example they are marked with 
crosses, as in the Anglo-Saxon illuminations ; but there are no forks, or 
even spoons, which, of course, were used for pottage and soups, and 
were perhaps brought on and taken off with them. All the guests seem 
to be ready to use their fingers. 

There was much formality and ceremony observed in filling and pre- 



THE DINNER-TABLE. 



179 



senting the cup, and it required long instruction to make the young cup- 
bearer perfect in his duties. In our cut No. 120, it will be observed 
that the carver holds the meat with his fingers while he cuts it. This is 
in exact accordance with the rules given in the ancient " Boke of 
Kervyng," where this officer is told, " Set never on fyshe, flesche, beest, 
ne fowle, more than two fyngers and a thombe." It will be observed 




No. 121.— A Royal Feast. 

also that in none of these pictures have the guests any plates; they 
seem to have eaten with their fingers, and thrown the refuse on the 
table. We know also that they often threw the fragments on the floor 
where they were eaten up by cats and dogs, which were admitted into 
the hall without restriction of number. In the " Boke of Curtasye," 
already mentioned, it is blamed as a mark of bad breeding to play with 
the cats and dogs while seated at table — 



Whereso thou sitt at mete in borde {at table), 

Avoide the cat at on bare worde, 

For yf thou stroke cat other dogge, 

Thou art lyke an ape teyghed with a clogge. 

It will be seen that these English directions for good manners at dinner 
are the same as those before given in Latin verse. It is the same code 
of directions, ascribed to Robert Grosseteste. Some of these direc- 
tions for behaviour are very droll, and show no great refinement of 



i8o 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



manners. A guest at table is recommended to keep his nails clean, 
for fear his fellow next him should be disgusted — 

Loke thy naylys ben clene in blythe, 
Lest thy felaghe lothe therwyth. 

He is cautioned against spitting on the table — 

If thou spit over the borde or elles opone, 
Thou shalle be holden an uncurtayse mon. 

When he blows his nose with his hand (handkerchiefs were not yet in 
use), he is told to wipe his hand on his skirt, or on his tippet — 

Yf thy nose thou dense, as may befalle, 
Loke thy honde thou dense withalle, 
Prively with skyrt do hit away, 
Or ellis thurgh thi tepet that is so gay. 

He is not to pick his teeth with his knife, or with a straw or stick, nor 
to clean them with the table-cloth ; and, if he sits by a gentleman, he 
is to take care he does not put his knee under the other's thigh ! 

The cleanliness of the white table-cloth seems to have been a matter 
of pride ; and to judge by the illuminations great care seems to have 
been taken to place it neatly and smoothly on the table, and to arrange 

tastefully the part which hung down at 
the sides. Generally speaking, the ser- 
vice on the table in these illuminations 
appears to be very simple, consisting of 
the cups, stands for the dishes of meat 
(messes, as they were called) brought by 
the cook, the knives, sometimes spoons 
for soup and liquids, and bread. Os- 
tentatious ornament is not often intro- 
|§§|F duced, and it was perhaps only used at 
the tables of princes and of the more 
powerful nobles. Of these ornaments, 
one of the most remarkable was the nef, 
or ship — a vessel, generally of silver, which contained the salt-cellar, 
towel, &c, of the prince, or great lord, on whose table it was brought 
with great ceremony. It was in the form of a ship, raised on a stand, 







No. 122.— The Nef. 



GLUTTONY. 



181 




No. 123. — Gluttony. 



and on one end it had some figure, such as a serpent, or castle, per- 
haps an emblem or badge chosen by its possessor. Our cut No. 122, 
taken from a manuscript in the French National Library, represents the 
nef placed on the table. The badge or emblem at the end appears to 
be a bird. 

Our forefathers seem to have remained a tolerably long time at table, 
the pleasures of which were by no means despised. Indeed, to judge 
by the sermons and satires of the Middle Ages, gluttony seems to have 
been a very prevalent vice among the clergy, as well as the laity • and 
however miserably the lower classes lived, the tables of the rich were 
loaded with every delicacy that could be 
procured. The monks were proverbially 
bons vivants ; and their failings in this 
respect are not unfrequently satirised in 
the illuminated ornaments of the medi- 
eval manuscripts. We have an example 
in our cut No. 123, taken from a manu- 
script of the fourteenth century in the 

Arundel Collection in the British Museum (No. 91); a monk is re- 
galing himself on the sly, apparently upon dainty tarts or patties, while 
the dish is held up by a little cloven-footed 
imp, who seems to enjoy the spirit of the 
thing, quite as much as the other enjoys the 
substance. Our next cut (No. 124) is taken 
from another manuscript in the British Mu- 
seum, of the same date (MS. Sloane, No. 
2435), an d forms an appropriate companion 
to the other. The monk here holds the 
office of cellarer, and is taking advantage of 
it to console himself on the sly. 

When the last course of the dinner had 
been served, the ewer and his companion again carried round the water 
and towel, and each guest washed. The tables were then cleared and 
the cloths withdrawn, but the drinking continued. The minstrels were 
now introduced. To judge by the illuminations, the most common 
musical attendant on such occasions was a harper, who repeated 




No. 124. — Monastic Devotions. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



romances and told stories, accompanying them with his instrument. In 
one of our cuts of a dinner party (No. 121), given in a former page, 
we see the harper, apparently a blind man led by his dog, introduced 
into the hall while the guests are still occupied with their repast. We 
frequently find a harper thus introduced, who is sometimes represented 
as sitting upon the floor, as in the accompanying illustration (No. 125) 
taken from the MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 71, v°. Another similar repre- 
sentation occurs at folio 203, v° of the same MS. 




No. 125. — The Harper in the Hall. 

The barons and knights themselves, and their ladies, did not disdain 
to learn the harper's craft ; and Gower, in his " Confessio Amantis," 
describes a scene in which a princess plays the harp at table. Appolinus 
is dining in the hall, of King Pentapolin, with the king and queen and 
their fair daughter, and all his lords, when, reminded by the scene of the 
royal estate from which he is fallen, he sorrowed and took no meat ; 
therefore the king, sympathising with him, bade his daughter take her 
harp and do all that she could to enliven that " sorry man : " — 

And she to don her faderes heste, 
Her harpe fette, and in the feste 
Upon a chaire which thei fette, 
Her selve next to this man she sette. 

Appolinus, in turn, takes the harp, and proves himself a wonderful 

proficient, and 

When he hath harped alle his fille, 
The kingis hest to fulfille, 
Awaie goth dishe, awaie goth cup, 
Doun goth the borde, the cloth was up, 
Thei risen and gone out of the halle. 



MINSTRELSY. 



183 



The minstrels, or jougleurs, formed a very important class of society 
in the Middle Ages, and no festival was considered as complete with- 
out their presence. They travelled singly or in parties, not only 
from house to house, but from country to country, and they generally 
brought with them, to amuse and please their hearers, the last new 
song, or the last new tale. When any great festival was announced, 
there was sure to be a general gathering of minstrels from all quarters, 
and as they possessed many methods of entertaining, — for they joined 
the profession of mountebank, posture-master, and conjurer, with that 
of music and story-telling, — they were always welcome. No sooner, 
therefore, was the business of eating done, than the jougleur or jougleurs 
were brought forward, and sometimes, when the guests were in a more 
serious humour, they chanted the old romances of chivalry ; at other 
times they repeated satirical poems, or party songs, according to the 
feelings or humour of those who were listening to them, or told love- 
tales or scandalous anecdotes, or drolleries, accompanying them with 
acting, and intermingling them with performances of various kinds. 
The hall was proverbially the place for mirth, and as merriment of a 
coarse description suited the mediaeval taste, the stories and performances 
of the jougleurs were often of an obscene character, even in the presence 
of the ladies. In the illuminated manuscripts, the minstrel is most 
commonly a harper, perhaps because these illuminations are usually 
found in the old romances of chivalry, where the harper generally 
acts an important part, for the minstrels were not unfrequently em- 
ployed in messages and intrigues. In general 
the harp is wrapped in some sort of drapery, as 
represented in our cut No. 126, taken from a 
MS. in the National Library of Paris, which was 
perhaps the bag in which the minstrel carried 
it, and may have been attached to the bottom of 
the instrument. The accompanying scene of 
minstrelsy, No. 127, is taken from a manuscript 
of the romance of"Guyron le Courtois " in the 
French National Library, No. 6976. 

The dinner was always accompanied by music, and itinerant minstrels, 
mountebanks, and performers of all descriptions, were allowed free 




No. 126. — A Harper. 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



access to the hall to amuse the guests by their performances. These 
were intermixed with dancing and tumbling, and often with exhibitions 




u ii n u u 

No. 127. — Minstrelsy. 



of a very gross character, which, however, amid the looseness of mediaeval 
manners, appear to have excited no disgust. These practices are 
curiously illustrated in some of the mediaeval illuminations. In the 




No. 128.— King Herod and the Daughter of Herodias. 

account of the death of John the Baptist, as given in the Gospels 
(Matthew xiv. 6, and Mark vi. 21), we are told, that at the feast given by 
Herod on his birthday, the daughter of Herodias came into the feasting- 
hall, and (according to our English version) danced before him and his 
guests. The Latin Vulgate has saltassel, which is equivalent to the 



HERODIAS. 



185 



English word, but the mediaeval writers took the lady's performances 
to be those of a regular wandering jougleur; and in two illuminated 
manuscripts of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the British 
Museum, she is pictured as performing tricks very similar to those 
exhibited by some of the modern beggar -boys in our streets. In the 
first of these (No. 128), taken from MS. Reg. 2. B. vii., the princess is 
supporting herself upon her hands with her legs in the air, to the evident 
admiration of the king, though the guests seem to be paying less 
attention to her feats of activity. In the second (No. 129), from the 
Harleian MS. No. 1527, she is represented in a similar position, but 
more evidently making a somersault. She is here accompanied by 
a female attendant, who expresses no less delight at her skill than the 
king and his guests. 




No. 129. — Herod and the Daughter of Herodias. 

It would appear from various accounts that it was not, unless perhaps 
at an early period, the custom in France to sit long after dinner at table 
drinking wine, as it certainly was in England, where, no doubt, the 
practice was derived from the Anglo-Saxons. Numerous allusions 
might be pointed out, which show how much our Anglo-Saxon fore- 
fathers were addicted to this practice of sitting in their halls and drink- 
ing during the latter part of the day; and it was then that they listened 
to the minstrel's song, told stories of their own feats and adventures, 
and made proof of their powers in hard drinking. From some of these 
allusions, which we have quoted in an earlier chapter, it is equally clear 
that these drinking-bouts often ended in sanguinary, and not unfre- 



1 86 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

quently in fatal, brawls. Such scenes of discord in the hall occur also 
in the early French metrical romances, but they take place usually at 
the beginning of dinner, when the guests are taking their places, or 
during the meal. In " Parise la Duchesse," a scene of this description 
occurs, in which the great feudal barons and knights fight with the pro- 
visions which had been served at the tables : " There," says the poet, 
" you might see them throw cheeses, and quartern-loaves, and great 
pieces of flesh, and great steel knives " — 

La veissiez jeter fromages et cartiers, 

Et granz pieces de char, et granz cotiauz d'acier. 

— Roman de Parise, p. 173. 

In " Garin le Loherain" (vol. ii. p. 17), at a feast at which the emperor 
and his empress were present, a fight commences between the two great 
baronial parties who were their guests, by a chief of one party striking 
one of the other party with a goblet ; the cooks are brought out of the 
kitchen to take part in it, with their pestles, ladles, and pot-hooks, led 
by Duke Begon, who had seized a spit, full of birds, as the weapon 
which came first to hand ; and the contest is not appeased until many 
are killed and wounded. 

The preceding remarks, of course, apply chiefly to the tables of the 
' prince, the noble, and the wealthy gentleman, where alone this degree 
of profusion and of ceremony reigned ; and to those of the monastic 
houses and of the higher clergy, where, if possible, the luxury even of 
princes was overpassed. The examples of clerical and monastic extra- 
vagance in feasting are so numerous, that I will not venture on this 
occasion to enter upon them any further. All recorded facts would 
lead us to conclude that the ordinary course of living of the monks 
was much more luxurious than that of the lay lords of the land, who, 
indeed, seem to have lived, on ordinary occasions, with some degree 
of simplicity, except that the great number of people who dined at their 
expense, required a very large quantity of provisions. Even men of 
rank, when dining alone, or hastily, are described as being satisfied 
with a very limited variety of food. In the romance of " Garin," when 
Rigaud, one of the barons of " Garin's " party, arrives at court with 
important news, and very hungry, the empress orders him to be served 
with a large vessel of wine (explained by a various reading to be 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 



187 



equivalent to a pot), four loaves (the loaves appear usually to have 
been small), and a roasted peacock — 

On li aporte plain un barris de vin, 
Et quatre pains, et un paon rosti. 

— Garin le Loherain, vol. ii. p. 257. 

In a pane of painted glass in the possession of Dr Henry Johnson, of 
Shrewsbury, of Flemish workmanship of about the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, and representing the story of the Prodigal Son, the 
prodigal is seated at table with a party of dissolute women, feasting 
upon a pasty. It is reproduced in our cut No. 130. They appear to 
have only one drinking-cup among them, but the wine is served from a 
very rich goblet. We cannot, however, always judge of the character of 
a feast by the articles placed on the table by the mediaeval illuminators, 
for they were in the constant habit of drawing things conventionally, 
and they seem to have found a difficulty — perhaps in consequence of 




No. 130.— Feasting on a Pasty. 

their ignorance of perspective — in representing a crowded table. Our 
cut No. 131, on the following page, taken from MS. Reg. 10 E. iv., in 
which we recognise again our old friend the holy-water clerc, represents 
a table which is certainly very sparingly furnished, although the per- 
sons seated at it seem to belong to a respectable class in society. 
Some cooked articles, perhaps meat, on a stand, bread, a single knife 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



to cut the provisions, and one pot, probably of ale, from which they 
seem to have drunk without the intervention of a glass, form the whole 
service. 

We find allusions from time to time to the style of living of the class 
in the country answering to our yeomanry, and of the bourgeoisie in the 
towns, which appears to have been sufficiently plain. In the romance 
of " Berte " (p. 78), when Berte finds shelter at the house of the farmer 
Symon, they give her, for refreshment, a chicken and wine. In the 
fabliau of the " Vilain mire " (Barbazan, vol. hi. p. 3), the farmer, who 
had saved money, and become tolerably rich, had no such luxuries as 




No. 131. — A Dinner t&te-a-tet 



salmon or partridge, but his provisions consisted only of bread and wine, 
and fried eggs, and cheese in abundance— 

N'orent pas saumon ne pertris, 
Pain et vin orent, et oes fris, 
Et du fromage a. grant plente. 

The franklin, in Chaucer, is put forward as an example of great 
liberality in the articles of provisions : — ' 

An householdere, and that a gret, was he, 
Seynt Julian he was in his countre, 
His breed, his ale, was alway after oon ; 
A bettre envyned man was nowher noon. 
Withoute bake mete was never his hous, 
Of fleissch and fissch, and that so plentyvous, 
It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke, 
Of alle deyntees that men cowde thynke. 



GLUTTONY. 189 



Aftur the sondry sesouns of the yeer, 

He chaunged hem at mete and at soper. 

Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe, 

And many a brem and many a luce in stevve {fish-pond), 

Woo was his cook, but if his sauce were 

Poynant and scharp, and redy al his gere ; 

His table dormant in his halle alway 

Stood redy covered al the longe day. 

— Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 341. 

A story in the celebrated collection of the Cent. Nouvelles Nouvelles 
(Nouv. 83), composed soon after the middle of the fifteenth century, 
gives us some notion of the store of provisions in the house of an 
ordinary burgher. A worthy and pious demoiselle — that is, a woman of 
the respectable class of bourgeoisie, who was, in this case, a widow — 
invited a monk to dine with her, out of charity. They dined without 
other company, and were served by a chambriere or maid-servant, and 
a man-servant or valet. The course of meat, which was first placed on 
the table, consisted of fior'ee, or soup, bacon, pork tripes, and a roasted 
ox's tongue. But the demoiselle had miscalculated the voracity of her 
guest, for, before she had made much progress in her poree, he had 
devoured everything on the table, and left nothing but empty dishes. 
On seeing this, his hostess ordered her servants to put on the table a 
piece of good salt beef, and a large piece of choice mutton • but he ate 
these also, to her no little astonishment, and she was obliged to send 
for a fine ham, which had been cooked the day before, and which 
appears to have been all the meat left in the house. The monk de- 
voured this, and left nothing but the bone. The course which would 
have followed the first service was then laid on the table, consisting of 
a " very fine fat cheese," and a dish well furnished with tarts, apples, 
and cheese, which also quickly followed the meat. It appears from 
this story that the ordinary dinner of a respectable burgher consisted 
of a soup, and two or three plain dishes of meat, followed by cheese, 
pastry, and fruit. An illumination, illustrative of another tale in this 
collection, in the unique manuscript preserved in the Hunterian Library, 
at Glasgow, and copied in the annexed cut, No. 132, represents a dinner- 
table of an ordinary person of this class of society, which is not over 
largely furnished. We see only bread in the middle, what appears to 
be intended for a ham at one end, and at the other a dish, perhaps of 



190 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



cakes or tarts. The lower classes lived, of course, much more meanly 
than the others ; but we have fewer allusions to them in the earlier 
mediseval literature, as they were looked upon as a class hardly worth 
describing. This class was, no doubt, much more miserable in France 
than in England. A French moral poem of the fourteenth century, 




No. 132. — A Frugal Repast. 

entitled " Le Chemin de Pauvrete et de Richesse," represents the poor 

labourers as having no other food than bread, garlic, and salt, with 

water to drink : — 

N'y ot si grant ne si petit 

Qui ne preist grant appetit 

En pain sec, en aux, et en sel, 

Ne il ne mengoit riens en el, 

Mouton, buef, oye, ne poucin ; 

Et puis prenoient le bacin, 

A deux mains, plain d'eaue, et biivoient. 

As I have said, the dresser (dressoir) or cupboard was the only im- 
portant article of furniture in the hall, besides the tables and benches. 
It was a mere cupboard for the plate, and had generally steps to enable 
the servants to reach the articles that were placed high up in it, but it is 
rarely represented in pictured manuscripts before the fifteenth century, 
when the illuminators began to introduce more detail into their works. 
The reader may form a notion of its contents, from the list of the service 



THE DRESSER. 191 



of plate given by Edward I. ot England to his daughter Margaret, after 
her marriage with the Duke of Brabant ; it consisted of forty-six silver 
cups with feet, for drinking; six wine pitchers, four ewers for water, four 
basins with gilt escutcheons, six great silver dishes for entremets ; one 
hundred and twenty smaller dishes; a hundred and twenty salts ; one 
gilt salt, for her own use; seventy-two spoons; and three silver spice- 
plates with a spice-spoon. 

The dresser, as well as all the furniture of the hall, was in the care of 
the groom ; it was his business to lay them out, and to take them away 
again. It appears to have been the usual custom to take away the boards 
and tressels (forming the tables) at the same time as the cloth. The 
company remained seated on the benches, and the drinking-cups were 
handed round to them. So tells us the " Boke of Curtasye" — 



"Whenne they have wasshen, and grace is sayde, 
Away he takes at a brayde [at once), 
Avoydes the borde into the flore, 
Tase away the trestles that been so store. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Minstrel. — His position under the Anglo-Saxons. — The Norman 
Trouvere, Menestrel, and Jougleur. — Their condition. — Rutebeuf. — 
Different Musical Instruments in use among the Minstrels. — The 
Beverley Minstrels. 

THE minstrel acted so very prominent a part in the household and 
domestic arrangements during the Middle Ages, that a volume 
on the history of domestic manners would be incomplete without some 
more detailed account of his profession than the slight and occasional 
notices given in the preceding pages. 

Our information relating to the Anglo-Saxon minstrel is very imper- 
fect. He had two names — scop, which meant literally a " maker," and 
belonged probably to the primitive bard or poet ; and glig-man, or gleo- 
man, the modern gleeman, which signifies literally a man who furnished 
joy or pleasure, and appears to have had a more comprehensive appli- 
cation, which included all professional performers for other people's 
amusement. In "Beowulf" (1. 180), the " song of the bard" {sang scopes) 
is accompanied by the sound of the harp (hearpan sw'eg) ; and it is prob- 
able that the harp was the special instrument of the old Saxon bard, 
who chanted the mythic and heroic poems of the race. The gleemen 
played on a variety of instruments, and they also exhibited a variety of 
other performances for the amusement of the hearers or spectators. In 
our engraving from an Anglo-Saxon illumination (p. 48), one of the 
gleemen is tossing knives and balls, which seems to have been con- 
sidered a favourite exhibition of skill down to a much later period. The 
early English " Rule of Nuns " (printed by the Camden Society) says of 
the wrathful man, that " he skirmishes before the devil with knives, and 
he is his knife-tosser, and plays with swords, and balances them upon his 



THE ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMEN. 193 

tongue by the sharp point." In the Life of Hereward, the gleeman 
(whose name is there translated by joculator, ox jongleur) is represented 
as conciliating the favour of the new Norman lords by mimicking the 
unrefined manners of the Saxons, and throwing upon them indecent 
jests and reproaches. But, in the later Anglo-Saxon period at least, 
the words scop and gleoman appear to have been considered as equi- 
valent; for, in another hall-scene in "Beowulf," where the scop 
performs his craft, we are told that — 

Leo^ wses asungen, The lay was sung, 

gleomannes gyd, the gleeman 's recital, 

gamen eft astah, pastime began again, 

beorhtode benc-sweg. the bench-noise became loud. 

— Beowulf, 1. 2323. 

There is here evidently an intimation of merrier songs than those sung 
by the scop, and whatever his performances were, they drew a louder 
welcome. And in a fragment of another romance which has come down 
to us, the gleeman Widseth bears witness to the wandering character of 
his class, and enumerates in a long list the various courts of different 
chiefs and peoples which he had visited. We learn, also, that among the 
Anglo-Saxons there were gleemen attached to the courts or households 
of the kings and great chieftains. Under Edward the Confessor, as we 
learn from the Domesday Survey, Berdic, the king's joculator, possessed 
three villas in Gloucestershire. 

On the Continent, when we first become acquainted with the history 
of the popular literature, we find the minstrels, the representatives of the 
ancient bards, appearing as the composers and chanters of the poems 
which told the stories of the old heroes of romance, and they seem also 
to have been accompanied usually with the harp, or with some other 
stringed instrument. They speak of themselves, in these poems, as 
wandering about from castle to castle, wherever any feasting was going 
on, as being everywhere welcome, and as depending upon the liberality 
either of the lord of the feast, or of the guests, for their living. Occa- 
sional complaints would lead us to suppose that this liberality was not 
always great, and the poems themselves contain formules of begging 
appeals, which are not very dignified or delicate. Thus, in the romance 
of " Gui de Bourgogne," the minstrel interrupts his narrative, to inform 
his hearers that " Whoever wishes to hear any more of this poem, must 



i 9 4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

make haste to open his purse, for it is now high time that he give me 
something " — 

Qui or voldra chancon o'ir et escouter, 
Si voist isnelement sa boursse desfermer, 
Qu'il est hui mes bien tans qu'il me doie doner. 

— Gui de Bourgogne, 1. 4136. 

In like manner, in the romance of " Huon de Bordeaux," the minstrel, 
after having recited nearly five thousand lines, makes his excuse for 
discontinuing until another day. He reminds his auditors that it is 
near vespers, and that he is weary, and invites them to return next day 
after dinner, begging each of them to bring with him a viaille, or half- 
penny, and complaining of the meanness of those who were accustomed 
to give so small a coin as the poitivine " to the courteous minstrel." The 
minstrel seems to have calculated that this hint might not be sufficient, 
and that they would require to be reminded of it, for, after some two or 
three hundred lines of the next day's recital, he introduces another 
formule of appeal to the purses of his hearers. " Take notice," he goes 
on to say, " as may God give me health, I will immediately put a stop 
to my song ; . . . . and I at once excommunicate all those who shall 
not visit their purses in order to give something to my wife " — 

Mais sacies bien, se Dix me doinst sante, 
Ma chancon tost vous ferai desiner ; 
Tous chiaus escumenie, . . . 

Qui n'iront a. lour bourses pour ma feme donner. 

— Huon de Bordeaux, 1. 5482. 

These minstrels, too, display great jealousy of one another, and especially 
of what they term the new minstrels, exclaiming against the decadence 
of the profession. 

/ It would appear indeed that these French minstrels, the poets by 
profession, who now become known to us by the name of trouveres, or 
inventors (in the language of the South of France, irobadors), held the 
position towards the jongleurs, or jogleurs* (from the Latin joculatorcs, 
and this again from jocus, game,) which the Anglo-Saxon scop held 

* The old literary antiquaries, through mistaking the u of the manuscripts for an n, 
and not attending to the derivation, have created a meaningless word— jongleur, — 
which never existed, and ought now to be entirely abandoned^ 



THE JOUGLEURS. 195 



towards the gleeman. Though the mass of the minstrels did get their 
living as itinerant songsters, they might be respectable, and sometimes 
there was a man of high rank who became a minstrel for his pleasure ; 
but the jougleurs, as a body, belonged to the lowest and most degraded 
class of mediaeval society, that of the ribalds or letchers, and the more 
respectable minstrels of former days were probably falling gradually into 
their ranks. It was the class which abandoned itself without reserve to 
the mere amusement and pleasure of the aristocracy ; and it seems to 
have been greatly increased by the Crusades, when the jougleurs of the 
West were brought into relations with those of the East, and learnt a 
multitude of new ways of exciting attention and making mirth, of which 
they were previously ignorant. The jougleurs had now become, in 
addition to their older accomplishments, magicians and conjurers, and 
wonderfully skilled in every description of sleight of hand, and it is from \ 
these qualities that we have derived the modern signification of the 
word juggler. They had also adopted the profession of the Eastern I 
story-tellers, as well as their stories, which, however, they turned into 
verse ; and they brought into the West many other exhibitions which 
did not tend to raise the standard of Western morals. 

The character of the minstrels, or jougleurs, their wandering life, and 
the ease with which they were admitted everywhere, caused them to be 1 
employed extensively as spies, and as bearers of secret news, and led 
people to adopt the disguise of a minstrel, as one which enabled them 
to pass through difficulties unobserved and unchallenged. In the story 
of Eustace the monk, when Eustace sought to escape from England, to 
avoid the pursuit of King John, he took a fiddle and a bow (a fiddle- 
stick), and dressed himself as a minstrel, and in this garb he arrived at 
the coast, and finding a merchant ready to sail, entered the ship with 
him. But the steersman, who did not recognise the minstrel as one of 
the passengers, ordered him out. Eustace expostulated, represented 
that he was a minstrel, and, after some dispute, the steersman, who seems 
to have had some suspicions either of his disguise or of his skill, con- 
cluded by putting the question, " At all events, if thou knowest any 
song, friend, let us have it." The monk was not skilled in singing, but 
he replied boldly, " Know I one ? Yea ! of ' Agoulant, and Aymon,' or 
of ' Blonchadin,' or of ' Florence of Rome ' " (these were all early metrical 



196 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



romances) ; " there is not a song in the whole world but I know it. I 
should be delighted, no doubt, to afford you amusement ; but, in truth, 
the sea frightens me' so much at present, that I could not sing a song 
worth hearing." He was allowed to pass. Some of those who adopted 
the disguise of the jougleur were better able to sustain it, and min- 
strelsy came to be considered a polite accomplishment, perhaps partly on 
account of its utility. There is, in the History of the Fitz-Warines, a 
remarkable character of this description named John de Raunpaygne. 
Fulke Fitz-Warine had formed a design against his great enemy, Moris 
Fitz- Roger, and he established himself, with his fellow outlaws, in the 
forest near Whittington, in Shropshire, to watch him. Fulke then 
called to him John de Raunpaygne. " John," said he, " you know 
enough of minstrelsy and joglery; dare you go to Whittington, and play 
before Moris Fitz-Roger, and spy how things are going on ? " "Yea," 
said John. He crushed an herb, and put it in his mouth, and his face 
began immediately to swell, and became so discoloured, that his own 
companions hardly knew him ; and he dressed himself in poor clothes, 
and "took his box with his instruments. of joglery and a great staff in 
his hand ; " and thus he went to Whittington, and presented himself at 
the castle, and said that he was a jogeleur. The porter carried him to 
Sir Moris, who received him well, inquired in the first place for news, 
and receiving intelligence which pleased him (it was designedly false), 
he gave the minstrel a valuable silver cup as a reward. Now, " John 
de Raunpaygne was very ill-favoured in face and body, and on this ac- 
count the ribalds of the household made game of him, and treated him 
roughly, and pulled him by his hair and by his feet. John raised his 
staff, and struck a ribald on the head, that his brain flew into the 
middle of the place. ' Wretched ribald,' said the lord, 'what hast 
thou done?' 'Sir,' said he, 'for God's mercy, I cannot help it; I 
have a disease which is very grievous, which you may see by my swollen 
face. And this disease takes entire possession of me at certain hours of 
the day, when I have no power to govern myself.' Moris swore a great 
oath, that if it were not for the news he had brought, he would have 
his head cut off immediately. The jogeleur hastened his departure, for 
the time he remained there seemed very long." The result of this 
adventure was the attack upon and slaughter of Moris Fitz-Roger by Fulke 



JOHN DE RA UNPA YGNE. 1 97 



Fitz-Warine. Some time after this, Fulke Fitz-Warine, having recovered 
his castle of Whittington, was lamenting over the loss of his friend, Sir 
Audulf de Bracy, who had fallen into the hands of King John's 
emissaries, and was a prisoner in Shrewsbury Castle, where King John 
had come to make his temporary residence, and again asked the aid of 
John de Raunpaygne, who promised to make a visit to the king. " John 
de Raunpaygne knew enough of tabor, harp, fiddle, citole, and joglery ; 
and he attired himself very richly, like an earl or baron, and he caused 
his hair and all his body to be entirely dyed as black as jet, so that 
nothing was white except his teeth. And he hung round his neck a 
very handsome tabor, and then, mounting a handsome palfry, rode 
through the town of Shrewsbury to the gate of the castle ; and by many 
a one was he looked at. John came before the king, and placed him- 
self on his knees, and saluted the king very courteously. The king 
returned his salutation, and asked him whence he came. ' Sire,' said 
he, ' I am an Ethiopian minstrel, born in Ethiopia.' Said the king, 
' Are all the people in your land of your colour ? ' ' Yea, my lord, 
man and woman.' .... John, during the day made great minstrelsy 
of tabor and other instruments. When the king was gone to bed, Sir 
Henry de Audelay sent for the black minstrel, and led him into his 
chamber. And they made great melody ; and when Sir Henry had 
drunk well, then he said to a valet, ' Go and fetch Sir Audulf de Bracy, 
whom the king will put to death to-morrow ; for he shall have a good 
night of it before his death.' The valet soon brought Sir Audulf into 
the chamber. Then they talked and played. John commenced a 
song which Sir Audulf used to sing ; Sir Audulf raised his head, looked 
at him full in the face, and with great difficulty recognised him. Sir 
Henry asked for some drink ; John was very serviceable, jumped 
nimbly on his feet and served the cup before them all. John was sly ; 
he threw a powder into the cup, which nobody perceived, for he was a 
good jogeleur, and all who drank became so sleepy that, soon after 
drinking, they lay down and fell asleep." John de Raunpaygne and 
Sir Audulf de Bracy took the opportunity of making their escape. We 
have here a mysterious intimation of the fact that the minstrel was 
employed also in dark deeds of poisoning. Still later on in the story 
of Fulke Fitz-Warine, the hero himself goes to a tournament in France 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



in disguise, and John de Raunpaygne resumes his old character of a 
jougleur. "John," says the narrative, "was very richly attired, and 
well mounted, and he had a very rich tabor, and he struck the tabor at 
the entry to the lists, that the hills and valleys rebounded, and the 
horses became joyful." 

All these anecdotes reveal to us minstrels who were perfectly free, 
and wandered from place to place at will ; but there were others who 
were retained by, and in the regular employ of, individuals. The king 
had his minstrels, and so most of the barons had their household min- 
strels. In one of the mediaeval Latin stories current in this country 
probably as early as the thirteenth century, we are told that a jougleur 
(mimus he is called in the Latin, a word used at this time as synonymous 
with joculator) presented himself at the gate of a certain lord to enter 
the hall and eat (for the table in those days was rarely refused to a min- 
strel), but he was stopped by the porter, who asked him to what lord he 
was attached, evidently thinking, as was thought some three centuries 
later, that the treatment merited by the servant depended on the quality 
of the master. The minstrel replied that his master was God. When 
the porter communicated this response to his churlish lord, or equally 
churlish steward, they replied that if he had no other lord, he should not 
be admitted there. When the jougleur heard this, he said that he was 
the devil's own servant ! whereupon he was received joyfully, " because 
he was a good fellow " [quia bomis socius eraf). The records of the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contain many entries of payment to 
the king's minstrels, and the names of some of them are preserved. On 
great festivals at the king's court, minstrels came to seek employment 
from every part of the world which acknowledged the reign of feudalism. 
Four hundred and twenty-six minstrels were present at the marriage 
festivities of the Princess Margaret, daughter of Edward I. ; and several 
hundred played before the same monarch at the Whitsuntide of 1306. 
This affluence of minstrels gave rise to the practice of building a large 
music-gallery at one end of the mediaeval hall, which seems to have been 
introduced in the fourteenth century. At this time minstrels were some- 
times employed for very singular purposes, such as for soothing the king 
when undergoing a disagreeable operation. We learn from the ward- 
robe accounts that, in the twenty -fifth year of the reign of Edward I. 



THE MINSTREL'S PAY AND PRIVATIONS. 199 

(a.d. 1297) twenty shillings, or about fifteen pounds in modern money, 
was given to the minstrel of Sir John Maltravers as a reward for per- 
forming before the king while he was bled. 

The king's minstrels, and those of the great lords, were very well 
paid, but the great mass of the profession, who depended only on what 
they obtained in gifts at each particular feast, which they recklessly 
squandered away as soon as they got it, lived a hard as it was a vagabond 
life. The king's minstrels, in the fourteenth century in England, received 
from sixpence to sevenpence halfpenny a day, that is, from seven shillings 
and sixpence to nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny during the whole 
year. On the other,hand, Colin Muset, one of the best of the French 
song-writers of the thirteenth century, complains of the want of liberality 
shown to him by the great baron before whom he had played on the viol 
in his hotel, and who had given him nothing, not even his wages : — 

Sire quens, j'ai viele 
Devant vos en vostre ostel ; 
Si ne m'avez riens donne, 
Ne mes gages acquite. 

And he laments that he is obliged to go home in poverty, because his 
wife always received him ill when he returned to her with an empty 
purse, whereas, when he carried back his matte well stuffed, he was 
covered with caresses by his whole family. The French poet Rutebeuf, 
whose works have been collected and published by M. Jubinal, may be 
considered as the type of the better class of minstrels at this period, and 
he has become an object of especial interest to us in consequence of the 
number of his shorter effusions which describe his own position in life. 
The first piece in the collection has for its subject his own poverty. He 
complains of being reduced to such distress, that he had been obliged for 
some time to live upon the generosity of his friends ; that people no 
longer showed any liberality to poor minstrels ; that he was perishing 
with cold and hunger ; and that he had no other bed but the bare straw. 
In another poem, entitled " Rutebeuf 's Marriage," he informs us that his 
privations were made more painful by the circumstance of his having a 
shrew for his wife. In a third he laments over the loss of the sight of 
his right eye, and informs us that, among other misfortunes, his wife had 
just been delivered of a child, and his horse had broken its leg, so that, 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



while he had no means of supporting a nurse for the former, the latter 
accident had deprived him of the power of going to any distance to exer- 
cise his minstrelsy craft. Rutebeuf repeats his laments on his extreme 
poverty in several other pieces, and they have an echo in those of other 
minstrels of his age. We find, in fact, in the verse-writers of the latter 
half of the thirteenth century, and in some of those of the fourteenth, 
a general complaint of the neglect of the minstrels, and of the degeneracy 
of minstrelsy. In a poem against the growing taste for the tabor, printed 
in M. Jubinal's volume, entitled " Jougleurs et Trouveres," the low state 
into which the minstrel's art had fallen is ascribed to a growing love for 
instruments of an undignified character, such as the tabor, which is said 
to have been brought to us from the Arabs, and the pipe. If an ignorant 
shepherd from the field, says the writer of this poem, but play on the 
tabor and pipe, he becomes more popular than the man who plays on 
the viol ever so well — 

Quar s'uns bergiers de chans tabore et cbalemele, 
Plus tost est apele que cil qui bien viele. 

Everybody followed the tabor, he says, and the good minstrels were no 
longer in vogue, though their fiddles were so much superior to the flutes, 
and flajolets (Jfajols), and tabors of the others. He consoles himself, 
however, with the reflection that the holy Virgin Mary never loved the 
tabor, and that no such vulgar instrument was admitted at her wedding ; 
while she had in various ways shown her favour to the jougleurs. " I 
pray God," our minstrel continues, " that he will send mischief to him 
who first made a tabor, for it is an instrument which ought to please 
nobody. No rich man ought to love the sound of a tabor, which is 
bad for people's heads ; for, if stretched tight, and struck hard, it may 
be heard at half a league's distance : " — 

Qui primes fist tabor, Diex li envoit contraire ! 
Que c'estrument i est qu' a nului ne doit plaire. 

Nus riches hom ne doit son de tabour amer. 
Quant il est bien tendu et on le vent hurter, 
De demie grant lieue le puet-on escouter ; 
Ci a trop mauves son por son chief conforter. 

The musical instruments used by the mediaeval gleemen and min- 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE MINSTRELS. 201 



strels form in themselves a not uninteresting subject. Those enumer- 
ated in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies are the harp (hearpe, cithara), the 
byme, or trumpet, the pipe "or whistle," t\\e fithele, 
viol, or fiddle, the horn, and the trumpet, the 
latter of which was called in Anglo-Saxon truth 
and scerga. To these we must certainly add a few 
others, for the drum or tabor seems to have been 
in use among them under some form, as well as 
the cymbal, hand-bells, lyre struck by a plectrum, 
and the organ, which latter was already the favour- 
ite church instrument. A portable organ was in 
use in the Middle Ages, of which we give a figure 
(No. 133), from a manuscript in the British 
Museum of the earlier part of the fourteenth cen- 
tury (MS. Reg. 14 E. iii.) This hand-organ was 
known also by the name of the dulcimer. It 

OCCUrS again in the following group (No. I34), No. 133.— An Organ Player. 

taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century 
in the British Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,293), where the performer 
on the dulcimer is accompanied by two other minstrels, one playing on 
the bagpipe, the other on the viol or fiddle. 

Each of the figures in this group is dressed in a costume so different 





No. i 3 4- — A Group of Minstrels. 

from the others that one might almost suppose them engaged in a mas- 
querade; and they seem to discountenance the notion that the min- 
strels were in the habit of wearing any dress peculiar to their class. In 
this respect, their testimony seems to be confirmed by the circumstance 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



that minstrels are mentioned sometimes as wearing the dresses which 
have been given them, among other gifts, as a reward for their perform- 
ances. The illuminated letter here introduced (No. 135), which is 




No. 135. — David and his Musicians. 



taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum 
(MS. Harl. No. 5102), represents King David singing his psalms to the 
harp, while three musicians accompany him. The first, who sits beside 




No. 136. — Musicians of the Cloister. 



him, is playing on the shalm or psaltery, which is frequently figured in 
the illuminations of manuscripts. One of the two upper figures is play- 
ing on bells, which also is a description of music often represented in 



ANGLO-SAXON INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC. 



203 



the illuminations of different periods; and the other is blowing the 
horn. These are ail instruments of solemn and ecclesiastical music. 
In the next cut (No. 136), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth 
century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), the shalm is placed in the hands of a 
nun, while a friar is performing on a rather singularly shaped cittern, or 
lute. 

In other manuscripts we find the ordinary musical instruments placed 
in the hands of the angels ; as in the early fourteenth century MS. Reg. 
2 B. vii., in a representation (copied in our cut, No. 137) of the creation, 
with the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shout- 
ing for joy, an angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, fiddle, 
cittern, shalm, and harp. There is another choir of angels at p. 168 of 
the same MS., with two citterns and two shalms, a fiddle and a trumpet. 




No. 137. — The Angelic Choir. 

Similar representations occur in the choirs of churches. In the bosses 
of the ceiling of Tewkesbury Abbey Church we see angels playing the 
cittern (with a plectrum), the harp (with its cover seen enveloping the 
lower half of the instrument), and the cymbals. In the choir of Lincoln 
Cathedral, some of the series of angels which fill the spandrels of its 
arcades, and which have given to it the name of the angel choir, are 
playing instruments, such as the trumpet, double pipe, pipe and tabret, 
dulcimer, viol, and harp, as if to represent the heavenly choir attuning 
their praises in harmony with the human choir below : — " therefore with 
angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud 
and magnify thy glorious name." We will introduce here, from the 
Royal MS. 14 E. iii., another drawing of an angelic minstrel (No. 138), 



204 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



playing a shalm ; others occur at folio i of the same MS. It has been 
suggested that the band of village musicians with flute, 
violin, clarionet, and bass-viol, whom most of us have 
seen occupying the singing-gallery of some country 
church, are probably not inaccurate representatives of 
the band of minstrels who occupied the rood-lofts in 
mediaeval times. In this period of the Middle Ages, 
indeed, music seems to have had a great charm for all 
classes of society, and each class appears in turn in the 
minstrel character in the illuminations of the manu- 
scripts. Even the shepherds, throughout the Middle 
Ages, seem to have been musical, like the swains of 
Theocritus or Virgil ; for we constantly find them re- 
presented playing upon instruments ; and in confirma- 
tion we give a couple of goatherds (No. 139), from MS. 
Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 83, of early fourteenth century date ; 
^&0 they are playing on the pipe and horn. But, besides 

No. 138.— An Angel t i iese t j ie basrpipe was also a rustic instrument : there 

Playing on the Shalm. ' 01 L 

is a shepherd playing upon one on folio 112 of the 
same MS. (given in our cut, No. 140) : and again, in the early fourteenth 






No. 139. — A Group of Shepherds. 



No. 140. — A Bagpiper. 



century MS. Reg. 2 B. vi., on the reverse of folio 8, is a group of shep- 
herds, one of whom plays a small pipe, and another the bagpipes. 
Chaucer (in the " House of Fame ") mentions — 



Pipes made of grene come, 
As han thise lytel herde gromes, 
That kepen besties in the bromes. 



ANGLO-SAXON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



105 




It is curious to find that even at so late a period as the reign of Queen 
Mary, they still officiated at weddings and other 
merrymakings in their villages, and even sometimes 
excited the jealousy of the professors of the joyous 
science, as we have seen in the early French poem 
against the taborers. 

I give next (cut No. 141) a representation of a 
female minstrel playing the tambourine ; it is also 
taken from a MS. of the fourteenth century (MS. 
Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 182). 

The earliest instance yet met with of the modern- No . I4 i._ The Lady and 

Tambourine. 

shaped drum is contained in the Coronation Book 
of Richard II., preserved in the Chapterhouse, Westminster, and is re- 
presented in the annexed cut (No. 142). This mediaeval 
drummer is clearly intended to be playing on two drums 
at once ; and, in considering their forms and position, we 
must make some allowance for the mediaeval neglect of 
perspective. 

In the mediaeval vocabularies we find several lists of 
musical instruments then best known. Thus John de Gar- 
lande, in the middle of the thirteenth century, enumerates, as the min- 
strels who were to be seen in the houses of the wealthy, individuals who 
performed on the instruments which he terms in Latin, lyra (meaning the 
harp), tibia (the flute), comu (the horn), vidula (the fiddle), sistrum (the 
drum), giga (the gittern), symphonia (a symphony), psalterium (the psal- 
tery), chorus, citola (the cittern), tympanum (the tabor), and cymbala (cym- 
bals). The English glossaries of the fifteenth century add to these the 
trumpet, the ribibe (a sort of fiddle), organs, and the crowd. The forms 
of these instruments of various periods will be found in the illustrations 
which have been given in the course of the present chapter. It will be 
well perhaps to enumerate again the most common ; they are the harp, 
fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ or dulcimer, the shalm or psaltery, the 
pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like clarionets, but called 
flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and horns, bagpipes, tam- 
bourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. We give two further groups of figures 
in illustration of these instruments, both taken from the Royal MS. so 




206 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



often quoted, 2 B. vii. In the first (No. 143) we have a boy (apparently) 




No. 143.— Blowing the Trumpet and Playing on the Cymbals. 

playing the cymbals ; and in the second (No. 144) an example of the 




No. 144. — The Dulcimer and Double Flute. 



double flute, which we have already seen in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts 
(see before pp. 46 and 77), and which appears to have been one of the 
musical instruments borrowed immediately from the Romans. In con- 
clusion of this subject we give a group of musical instruments (No. 145) 
from one of the illustrations of the celebrated book entitled " Der Weise 
Konig," a work of the close of the fifteenth century. 

The early commentator on the Dictionarius, or Vocabulary, of John 
de Garlande, calls the musical instruments instrumenta leccatorum (instru- 
ments of the letchers or ribalds), and I have already stated that the 
minstrels, or jougleurs, were considered as belonging generally to that 
degraded class of society. In the vocabularies of the fifteenth century, 



DISREPUTABLE CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS. 207 



they are generally classed under the head of reprehensible or disgraceful 
professions, along with ribalds, heretics, harlots, and so forth. It was 
the same character which led them, a little later,' to be proscribed in 
acts of parliament, under the titles of rogues and vagabonds. In the 
older poetry, too, they are often joined with disgraceful epithets. There 
is a curious early metrical story, or fabliau, which was made, no doubt, 
to be recited by the minstrels themselves, although it throws ridicule on 
their profession ; it is entitled " Les Deux Troveors Ribauz" " The Two 
Ribald Trouveres," and consists of a ludicrous dispute between them on 




No. 145. — Musical Instruments. 

their qualifications as minstrels. My readers must not suppose that at 
this time the reciters of poetry were a different or better class than 
those who performed jugglery and low buffoonery — for, in this poem, 
either of the two claimants to superiority boasts of his skill equally in 
possessing in his memory completely, and being able to recite well, the 
early Chansons de Geste, or Carlovingian romances, the later romances 
of chivalry, and the fabliaux or metrical stories ; in playing upon the 
most fashionable musical instruments, such as the citole, the fiddle, 
and the gigue (gittern) ; in performing extraordinary feats and in sleight 



208 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



of hand ; and even in making chaplets of flowers, and in acting as a 
spy or as a go-between in love intrigues. No doubt there were minstrels 
who kept themselves more respectable, but they were exceptions to the 
general character of the class, and were chiefly men in the service of 
the king or of the great barons. There appears also to have been, for 
a long time, a continued attempt to raise minstrelsy to a respectable 
position, and out of this attempt arose, in different places, companies 
and guilds. Of these, the most remarkable of which we have any 
knowledge in this country, was the ancient fraternity of minstrels of 
Beverley, in Yorkshire. When this company originated is not known ; 
but it was of some consideration and wealth in the reign of Henry VI., 
when the church of St Mary's,'in that town, was built ; for the minstrels 




No. 146.— The Minstrels of Beverley. 

gave a pillar to it, on the capital of which a band of minstrels were 
sculptured. The cut above, No. 146, is copied from the engraving of 
this group, given in Carter's " Ancient Painting and Sculpture." The 
oldest existing document of the fraternity is a copy of laws of the 
time of Philip and Mary, similar to those by which all trade-guilds 
were governed : their officers were an alderman and two stewards or 
seers {i.e., searchers); and the only items in their laws which throw any 
light upon the history or condition of the minstrels are — one which 
requires that they should not take "any new brother except he be 
mynstrell to some man of honour or worship, or waite of some towne 
corporate or other ancient town, or else of such honestye and conyng 
{knowledge) as shall be thought laudable and pleasant to the hearers 



DECLINE OF MINSTRELSY. 209 

there ; " and another, to the effect that " no mylner, shepherd, or of 

other occupation, or husbandman, or husbandman servant, playing 

upon pype or other instrument, shall sue {follow) any wedding or other 

thing that pertaineth to the said science, except in his own parish." 

Institutions like these, however, had little effect in counteracting the 

natural decline of minstrelsy, for the state of society in which it existed 

was passing away. It would be curious to trace the changes in its history 

by the instruments which became especially characteristic of the popular 

jougleur. The harp had given way to the fiddle, and already, towards 

the end of the thirteenth century, the fiddle was yielding its place to 

the tabor. In the Anglo-Norman romance of " Horn," of the thirteenth 

century, we are told of a ribald " who goes to marriages to play on the 

tabor " — 

A li piert qu'il est las un lechur 

Ki a ces nocces vient pur juer od tabur ; 

and the curious fabliau of the " King of England and the Jougleur of 
Ely " describes the latter as carrying his tabor swung to his neck — 

Entour son col porta soiin tabour. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Amusements after Dinner. — Gambling. — The Game of Chess ; its 
History. — Dice. — Tables. — Draughts. 

' T HE dinned, even a m0 n g the highest ranhs of soeie.v, was, as 
-*- I have stated, early in the forenoon ; and, except in the case of 
great feasts, it appears not to have been customary to sit long after 
dinner. Thus a great part of the day was left on people's hands, to 
fill up with some description of amusement or occupation. After the 
dinner was taken away, and the ceremony of washing had been gone 
through, the wine cup appears to have been at least once passed round, 
before they all rose from table. The Camden Society has published an 
early French metrical romance (" Blonde of Oxford," by Philippe de 
Reimes), which gives us a very interesting picture of the manners of the 
thirteenth century. Jean of Dammartin is represented as the son of a 
noble family in France, who comes to England to seek his fortune, and 
enters the service of an Earl of Oxford, as one of the esquires in his 
household. There his duty is to attend upon the Earl's daughter, the 
Lady Blonde, and to serve her at table. "After the meal, they wash 
their hands and then go to play, as each likes best, either in forests or 
on rivers {i.e. hunting or hawking), or in amusements of other kinds. 
Jean goes to which of them he likes, and, when he returns, he often 
goes to play in the chambers of the Countess, with the ladies, who 
oblige him to teach them French." Jean does his best to please them, 
for which he was qualified by his education, " For he was very well ac- 
quainted with chamber games, such as chess, tables, and dice, with 
which he entertains his damsel (Blonde) ; he often says ' check ' and 
' mate ' to her, and he taught her to play many a game : " — 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 



De jus de cambres seut asses, 
D'esches, de tables, et de des, 
Dont il sa damoisele esbat ; 
Souvent li dist eschek et mat ; 
De maint jeu a juer l'aprist. 

— Blonde of Oxford, 1. 399. 

This is a correct picture of the usual occupations of the after part of 
the day among the superior classes of society in the feudal ages ; and 
scenes in accordance with it are often found in the illuminations of the 
mediaeval manuscripts. One of these is represented in the engraving 
No. 147 on the following page, taken from a manuscript of the fifteenth 
century, containing the romance of the " Quatre Fils d'Aymon," and 
preserved in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris. In the chamber in 
front, a nobleman and one of the great ladies of his household are 
engaged at chess, while in the background we see other ladies enjoying 
themselves in the garden, which is shown to us with its summer-house 
and its flower-beds surrounded with fences of lattice-work. It may be 
remarked, that the attention of the chess-players is withdrawn suddenly 
from their game by the entrance of an armed knight, who appears in 
another compartment of the illumination in the manuscript. 

Of the chamber games enumerated in the foregoing extract from the 
romance of " Blonde of Oxford," that of chess was no doubt looked 
upon as by far the most distinguished. To play well at chess was con- 
sidered as a very important part of an aristocratic education. Thus, 
in the " Chanson de Geste " (metrical romance) of Parise la Duchesse, 
the son of the heroine, who was brought up by the king in his palace, 
had no sooner reached his fifteenth year, than, " he was taught first his 
letters, until he had made sufficient progress in them, and then he learnt 
to play at tables and chess," and learnt these games so well, " that no 
man in this world was able to mate him : " — 

Quant l'anfes ot xv. anz et compliz et passez, 
Premiers aprist a lettres, tant qu'il en sot assez ; 
Puis aprist-il as tables et a eschas joier, 
II n'a ome en cest monde qui Ten peust mater. 

— Parise la Dtichesse, p. 86. 

In this numerous cycle of romances, scenes in which kings and princes, 
as well as nobles, are represented as occupying their leisure with the 
game of chess, occur very frequently, and sometimes the game forms an 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



important incident in the story. In " Garin le Loherain," a messenger 
hurries to Bordeaux, and finds Count Thiebaut playing at chess with 
Berengier d' Autri. Thiebaut is so much excited by the news, that he 




j No. 147. — A Mediaeval After-Dinner Scene. 1 

pushes the chess-board violently from him, and scatters the chess-men 

about the place — 

Thiebaus l'o'it, a. pou n'enrage vis, 
Li esches boute, et le jeu espandit. 

— Garin le Loherain, ii. 77- 

So, in the same romance, the Emperor Pepin, arriving at his camp, had 
no sooner entered his tent than, having put on a loose tunic (pliant), and 
a mantle, he called for a chess-board and sat down to play — 

Esches demande, si est an jeu assis. — lb., ii. 127. 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 213 



Even Witikind, the king of the Pagan Saxons, is represented as amusing 
himself with this game. When the messenger who carried him news 
that Charlemagne was on the way to make war upon him, arrived at 
" Tremoigne," the palace of the Saxon king, he found Witikind playing 
at chess with Escorfaus de Lutise, and the Saxon queen, Sebile, who was 
also well acquainted with the game, looking on — 

A lui joe as eschas Escorsaus de Lutise; 
Sebile les esgarde, qi do jeu est aprise. 

— Chanson des Saxons, i. 91. 

Witikind was so angry at this intelligence, that his face "became as red 
as a cherry," and he broke the chess-board to pieces — 

D'ire et de mautalant rugist comme cerise ; 
Le message regarde, le geu pecoie et brise. 

In the " Chanson de Geste " of Guerin de Montglaive, the story turns 
upon an imprudent act of Charlemagne, who stakes his whole kingdom 
upon a game of chess, and losing it to Guerin, is obliged to compound 
with him by surrendering to him his right to the city of Montglaive, then 
in the possession of the Saracens. 

These " Chansons de Geste," formed upon the traditions of the early 
Carlovingian period, can only of course be taken as a picture of the 
manner of the age at which they were composed, that is, of the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, and we know, from historical evidence, that 
the picture is strictly true. At that period chess certainly was what has 
been termed the royal game. The celebrated Walter Mapes, writing 
in the latter half of the twelfth century, gives a curious anecdote relat- 
ing to tragical events which had occurred at the court of Brittany, ap- 
parently in the earlier part of the same century. Alan of Brittany, per- 
haps the last of the name who had ruled over that country, had, at the 
suggestion of his wife, entrapped a feudatory prince, Remelin, and sub- 
jected him to the loss of his eyes and other mutilations. Remelin's 
son, Wigan, having escaped a similar fate, made war upon Alan, and 
reduced him to such extremities that, through the interference of the 
king of France, he made his peace with Wigan, by giving him his 
daughter in marriage; and thus for many years the country remained in 
peace. But it appears that the lady always shared in her father's feuds, 
and looked with exulting contempt on her father's mutilated enemy. 



214 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

One day she was playing with her husband at chess, and, towards the 
end of the game, Wigan, called away by some important business, 
asked one of his knights to take his place at the chess-board. The 
lady was the conqueror, and when she made her last move, she said to 
the knight, " It is not to you, but to the son of the mutilated that I 
say ' mate.' " Wigan heard this sarcasm, and, deeply offended, hurried 
to the residence of his father-in-law, took him by surprise, and inflicted 
upon him the same mutilations which had been experienced by Reme- 
lin. Then, returning home, he engaged in another game with his wife, 
and, having gained it, threw the eyes and other parts of which her father 
had been deprived on the chess-board, exclaiming, " I say mate to the 
daughter of the mutilated." The story goes on to say that the lady 
concealed her desire of vengeance, until she found an opportunity of 
effecting the murder of her husband. 

We need not be surprised if, among the turbulent barons of the 
Middle Ages, the game of chess often gave rise to disputes and sanguinary 
quarrels. The curious history of the Fitz-Warines, reduced to writing 
certainly in the thirteenth century, gives the following account of the 
origin of the feud between King John and Fulk Fitz-Warine, the out- 
law :— " Young Fulk," we are told, " was bred with the four sons of 
King Henry II., and was much beloved by them all except John ; for 
he used often to quarrel with John. It happened that John and Fulk 
were sitting all alone in a chamber playing at chess ; John took the 
chess-board and struck Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt himself hurt, 
raised his foot and struck John in the middle of the stomach, that his 
head went against the wall, and he became all weak and fainted. Fulk 
was in consternation ; but he was glad that there was nobody in the 
chamber but them two, and he rubbed John's ears, who recovered from 
his fainting-fit, and went to the king his father, and made a great com- 
plaint. ' Hold your tongue, wretch,' said the king, ' you are always 
quarrelling. If Fulk did anything but good to you, it must have been 
by your own desert;' and he called his master, and made him. beat 
him finely and well for complaining." Similar incidents recur continually 
in the early romances I have just quoted, as the " Chansons de Geste," 
which give us so vivid a picture of feudal times. A fatal quarrel of 
this kind was the cause of the feud between Charlemagne and Ogier le 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 215 



Danois. At one of the Easter festivals of the court of Charlemagne, the 
emperor's son, Charles, and Bauduin, the illegitimate son of Ogier, went 
to play together. Bauduin and young Charles took a chess-board and 
sat down to the game for pastime. " They have arranged their chess- 
men on the board. The king's son first moved his pawn, and young 
Bauduin moved his aufin (bishop) backwards. The king's son thought 
to press him very hard, and moved his knight upon the other aufin. 
The one moved forward and the other backward so long, that young 
Bauduin said ' mate ' to him in the corner : " — 

II et Callos prisent un esqueluer, 
Au ju s'asisent por aus esbanier. 
S'ont lor esches assis sor le tabler. 
Li fix au roi traist son paon premier, 
Bauduines traist son aufin arier, 
Li fix au roi le volt forment coitier, 
Sus l'autre aufin a trait son chevalier. 
Tant traist li uns avant et l'autre arier, 
Bauduine's li dist mat en Tangier. 

— Ogier de Danemarche, 1. 3159. 

The young prince was furious at his defeat, and, not content with treat- 
ing the son of Ogier with the most insulting language, he seized the 
chess-board in his two hands, and struck him so violent a blow on the 
forehead, that he split his head, and scattered his brains over the floor. 
In a well-known illuminated manuscript of the fifteenth century, in the 
British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), containing a copy of the romance 
of " Ogier le Danois," this scene is represented in an illumination which 
is copied in our cut No. 148, on the next page. Similar incidents are 
rather common in these old romances. In that of " Parise la Duchesse," 
her young son, brought up as a foundling at the court of the king of 
Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to the old nobles. Four of the 
sons of the latter conspire to murder him, and it is arranged that they 
shall invite him to go and play at chess with them in a retired cellar, and, 
having secretly provided themselves with knives, insult him, in order to 
draw him into a quarrel, and then stab him to death. " Hugues," they 
said, " will you come with us to play at chess ? You may gain a hundred 
francs on the gilt chess-board, and at the same time you will teach us 
chess and dice ; for certainly you know the games much better than any 
of us." Hugues seems to have been conscious of the frequency of 



216 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

quarrels arising from the game, for it was not until they had promised 

him that they would not seek any cause of dispute, that he accepted 

their invitation. They then led him into the cellar, and sat down at 

the chess-board. " He began by playing with the son of Duke Granier ; 

and each put down a hundred francs in coined money ; but he had 

soon vanquished and mated them all, that not one of them was able to 

mate him : " 

Au fil au due Graner comenca a juer ; 
Chascuns mist c. frans de deniers moniez ; 
Mais il les a trestoz et vancus et matez, 
Que il n'i ot i. sol qui l'an poiist mater. 

— Parise la Duchesse, p. 105. 

Hugues, in kindness, offered to teach them better how to play, without 
allowing them to risk their money, but they drew their knives upon him, 
and insulted him in the most outrageous terms. He killed the foremost 




No. 148. — A Quarrel at Chess. 

of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing upon the chess-board for a 
weapon, for he was unarmed, he " brained " the other three with it. 
We learn from this anecdote that it was the custom in the Middle x\ges 
to play at chess for money. 

As I have already remarked, these romances picture to us the manners 
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and not those of the Carlovingian 
era. The period when the game of chess was first introduced into 
Western Europe can only be conjectured, for writers of all descriptions 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 217 



were so much in the habit of employing the notions belonging to their 
own time in relating the events of the past, that we can place no depen- 
dence on anything which is not absolute contemporary evidence. The 
chess-board and men so long preserved in the treasury of St Denis, and 
said to have belonged to Charlemagne, were, I think, probably, not older 
than the eleventh century, and appear to have had a Byzantine origin. 
If the game of chess had been known at the court of Charlemagne, 
I cannot but think that we should have found some distinct allusion to 
it. The earliest mention of this game that we know is found in a letter 
from Damianus, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, to Alexander II., who was 
elected to the papacy in 1061, and enjoyed it till 1073. Damianus tells 
the Pope how he was travelling with a Bishop of Florence, when, " hav- 
ing arrived in the evening at a hostel, I withdrew," he says, " into the 
cell of a priest, while he remained with the crowd of travellers in the 
spacious house. In the morning, I was informed by my servant that the 
aforesaid bishop had been playing at the game of chess ; which informa- 
tion, like an arrow, pierced my heart very acutely. At a convenient 
hour, I sent for him, and said in a tone of severe reproof, ' The hand is 
stretched out, the rod is ready for the back of the offender,' ' Let the 
fault be proved,' said he, ' and penance shall not be refused.' ' Was it 
well,' I rejoined, ' was it worthy of the character you bear, to spend the 
evening in the vanity of chess-play (in vanitate scachorum), and defile the 
hands and tongue, which ought to be the mediator between man and the 
Deity? Are you not aware that, by the canonical law, bishops, who are 
dice-players, are ordered to be deposed ? ' He, however, making himself 
a shield of defence from the difference in the names, said that dice was 
one thing, and chess another ; consequently that the canon only forbade 
dice, but that it tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, ' Chess,' I 
said, ' is not named in the text, but the general term of dice comprehends 
both the games. Wherefore, since dice are prohibited, and chess is 
not expressly mentioned, it follows, without doubt, that both kinds of 
play are included under one term, and equally condemned ? ' " This 
occurred in Italy, and it is evident from it that the game of chess was 
then well known there, though I think we have a right to conclude from 
it, that it had not been long known. There appears to be little room for 
doubting, that chess was, like so many other mediaeval practices, an 



218 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Oriental invention ; that the Byzantine Greeks derived it from the 
Saracens, and that from them it came by way of Italy to France. 

The knowledge of the game of chess, however, seems to have been 
brought more directly from the East by the Scandinavian navigators, to 
whom such a means of passing time in their distant voyages, and in 
their long nights at home, was most welcome, and who soon became 
extraordinarily attached to it, and displayed their ingenuity in elaborately 
carving chess-men in ivory (that is, in the ivory of the walrus), which 
seem to have found an extensive market in other countries. In the year 
183 1, a considerable number of these carved ivory chess-men were found 
on the coast of the Isle of Lewis, probably the result of some shipwreck 
in the twelfth century, for to that period they belong. They formed part 




HI? 4 3 2 

No. 149. — Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century. 

of at least seven sets, and had therefore probably been the stock of a 
dealer. Some of them were obtained by the British Museum, and a very 
learned and valuable paper on them was communicated by Sir Frederic 
Madden to the Society of Antiquaries, and printed in the twenty-fourth 
volume of the Archceologia. Some of the best of them, however, re- 
mained in private hands, and have more recently passed into the rich 
museum of the late Lord Londesborough. We give here two groups of 
these curious chess-men, taken from the collection of Lord Londes- 
borough, and from those in the British Museum as engraved in the volume 
of the Archceologia just referred to. The first group, forming our cut, 
No. 149, consists of a king (1), from the collection of Lord Londes- 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 



219 



borough, and a queen (2), bishop (3), and knight (4), all from the 
Archceologia ; and the second group (No. 150) presents us with the 
warriors on foot, to which the Icelanders gave the name of hrokr., and 
to which Sir Frederic Madden gives the English name of warders, one 
of them (5) from Lord Londesborough's collection, the other (6) from 
the British Museum. The rest are pawns, all from the latter collection; 
they are generally plain and octagonal, as in the group to the right 
(7), but were sometimes ornamented, as in the case of the other ex- 
ample (8). 

It will be seen at once that in name and character these chess-men 
are nearly identical with those in common use, although in costume they 
are purely Scandinavian. The king sits in the position, with his sword 




657 

No. 150. — Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century. 

across his knee, and his hand ready to draw it, which is described as char- 
acteristic of royalty in the old Northern poetry. The queen holds in her 
hand a drinking-horn, in which at great festivals the lady of the house- 
hold, of whatever rank, was accustomed to serve out the ale or mead to 
the guests. The bishops are some seated, and others standing, but all dis- 
tinguished by the mitre, crosier, and episcopal costume. The knights 
are all on horseback, and are covered with characteristic armour. 
The armed men on foot, just mentioned by the name of warders, were 
peculiar to the Scandinavian set of chess-men, and supplied the place 
of the rocks, or rooks, in the mediaeval game, and of the modern 
castle. 

Several of the chess-men had indeed gone through more than one 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DA VS. 



modification in their progress from the East. The Arabs and Persians 
admitted no female among the persons on their chess-board, and the 
piece which we call the queen was with them the fi/ierz (vizier or coun- 
cillor). The Oriental name, under the form fers, ferz, orferce, in Latin 
ferzia, was long preserved in the Middle Ages, though certainly as early 
as the twelfth century the original character of the piece had been 
changed for that of a queen, and the names fers and queen became 
synonymous. It is hardly necessary to say that a bishop would not be 
found on a Saracenic chess-board. This piece was called by the Persians 
and Arabs pil or fihil, meaning an elephant, under the form of which 
animal it was represented. This name was also preserved in its trans- 
mission to the West, and with the Arab article prefixed became alfil, or 
more commonly alfin, which was again softened down into aufin, the 




No. 151. — Chess-men of the Thirteenth Century. 

usual name of the piece in the old French and English writers. The 
character of the bishop must have been adopted very early among the 
Christians, and it is found under that character among the Northerns, 
and in England. Such, however, was not the case everywhere. The 
Russians and Swedes have preserved the original name of the elephant. 
In Italy and France this piece was sometimes represented as an archer ; 
and at an early period in the latter country, from a supposed confusion 
of the Arabic fil with the French fol, it was sometimes called by the 
latter name, and represented as a court- jester. Roc, the name given by 
the Saracens to the piece now called the castle, meant apparently a hero, 
or champion, Persian rokh; the name was preserved in the Middle Ages, 
but the piece seems to have been first represented under the character 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 



of an elephant, and it was no doubt, from the tower which the elephant 

carried on its back that our modern form originated. The Icelanders seem 

alone to have adopted the name in its original meaning, for with them, 

as shown in cut No. 150, the hrokr'xs represented as a warrior on foot. 

A few examples of carved chess-men have been found in different 

parts of England, which show that these highly-ornamented pieces were 

in use at all periods. One of these, represented in our cut No. 151, is 

preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and, to judge by the 

costume, belongs to the earlier part of the thirteenth century. Its 

material is the tooth of the walrus (the northern ivory) ; it represents 

a knight on both sides, one wielding a lance, the other a sword, the 

£T\ intervening spaces being filled with 

«ilk foliage. Another knight, made of 

yA,. jMdm rea l ivory, is represented in our cut 

f^Al^^^^^^^ No. 152, taken from an engrav- 

Wj^^M^y^3»o^^^®V ing in the third volume of the 

//f >J1IBI\ m\ Archaeological Journal, where it is 

/ aM||pII11 \\ nWllil^ stated to be in the possession of 

J\ f fi " jfll^i \ js^I!^- tne -^- ev - J- Eagles, of Worcester. 

^^^^a^^^^^^ ^^^^^SP^- it belongs to the reign of Edward 

No. 152.— Chess-man of the Fourteenth Century. III. Here the knight is On 

horseback, and wears chain-mail and plate. The body of the horse is 
entirely covered with chain-mail, over which housings are placed, and 
the head with plate armour. 

All who are acquainted with the general character of mediseval carving 
will suppose that these ornamental chess-men were of large dimensions, 
and consequently rather clumsy for use. The largest of those found in 
the Isle of Lewis, a king, is upwards of four inches in height, and nearly 
seven inches in circumference. They were hence rather formidable 
weapons in a strong hand, and we find them used as such in some of 
the scenes of the early romances. According to one version of the 
death of Bauduin, the illegitimate son of Ogier, the young Prince 
Charles struck him with the rook so violent a blow that he made his 
two eyes fly out : — 

La le dona Callos le cop mortel 
Si com juoit as eske's et as des ; 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



La le feri d'un rok par tel fiertes, 
Que andus les elx li fist du cief voler. 

— Ogier de Danemarcke, 1. 90. 

A rather rude illumination in one of the manuscripts, of which M. 
Barrois has given a fac-simile in his edition of this romance, represents 
Charles striking his opponent with the rook. According to another 
version of the story, the young Prince, using the rook as a missile, threw 
it at him. An incident in the romance of the " Quatre Fils dAymon," 
where the agents of Regnault go to arrest Duke Richard of Normandy, 
and find him playing at chess, is thus told quaintly in the English 
version printed by Copeland : — " When Duke Richarde saw that these 
sergeauntes had him thus by the arm, and helde in his hande a lady of 
ivery, wherewith he would have given a mate to Yonnet, he withdrew 
his arme, and gave to one of the sergeauntes such a stroke with it into 
the forehead, that he made him tumble over and over at his feete ; and 
then he tooke a rooke, and smote another withall upon his head, that 
all to-brost it to the brayne." 

The chess-boards were naturally large, and were sometimes made of 
the precious metals, and of other rich materials. In one romance, the 
chess-board and men are made of crystal; in another, that of "Alexander," 
the men are made of sapphires and topazes. A chess-board, preserved 
in the museum of the Hotel de Cluny, at Paris, and said to have been 
the one given by the old man of the mountains (the sheikh of the 
Hassassins) to St Louis, is made of rock-crystal, and mounted in silver 
gilt. In the romances, the chess-board is sometimes spoken of as made 
of ormier, or pure gold. But when the game of chess came into exten- 
sive use, it became necessary not only to make the chess-board and men 
of less expensive materials and smaller, but to give to the latter simple 
conventional forms, instead of making them elaborate sculptures. The 
foundation for this latter practice had already been laid by the Arabs, 
whose tenets, contrary to those of the Persians, proscribed all images of 
living beings. The mediaeval conventional form of the rook, a figure with 
a bi-parted head, somewhat approaching to the heraldic form of the 
fleur-de-lis, appears to have been taken directly from the Arabs; the 
knight was represented by a small upright column, the upper part of it 
bent to one side, and is supposed to have been meant for a rude repre- 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 



223 



sentation of the horse's head. The aufin, or bishop, had the same form 
as the knight, except that the bent end was cleft, probably as an indi- 
cation of the episcopal mitre. The accompanying figure of a chess- 
board (No. 153), taken from a manuscript of the earlier part of the 
fourteenth century (MS. Cotton. Cleopat. B. ix.), but no doubt copied 
from one of the latter part of the thirteenth century, when the Anglo- 
Norman metrical treatise on chess which it illustrates was composed, gives 
all the conventional forms of chess-men used at that time. The piece 
at the left-hand extremity of the lower row is evidently a king. The 
other king is seen in the centre of the upper row. Immediately to the 
left of the latter is the queen, and the two figures below the king 




No. 153. — An Early Chess-board and Chess-men. 



and queen are knights, while those to the left of the queen and 
white knight are rooks. Those in the right-hand corner at top and 
bottom, are aufins, or bishops. The pawns on this chess-board bear a 
striking resemblance to those found in the Isle of Lewis. The same 
forms with very slight variations present themselves in the scenes of 
chess-playing as depicted in the illuminated manuscripts. Thus, in a 
manuscript of the French prose romance of " Meliadus," in the British 
Museum (MS. Addit. No. 12,228, fol. 23, v°), written between the years 
1330 and 1350, we have an interesting sketch (given in our cut No. 154) 
of two kings engaged in this game. The rooks and the bishops are 
distinctly represented, but the others are less easily recognised, in conse- 



224 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



quence of the imperfect drawing. Our next cut (No. 155) is taken from 
the well known manuscript of the poetry of the German Minnesingers, 
made for Rudiger von Manesse, early in the fourteenth century, and now 




No. 154. — A Royal Game at Chess. 



preserved in the National Library in Paris, and represents the prince- 
poet, Otto of Brandenburg, playing at chess with a lady. We have 




No. 155. — A Game at Chess in the Fourteenth Century. 

here the same conventional forms of chess-men, a circumstance which 
shows that the same types prevailed in England, France, and Germany. 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 225 




Another group, in which a king is introduced playing at chess, forms 
the subject of our cut No 156, and is taken 
from a manuscript of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, in the Harleian Collection in the 
British Museum (No. 1275), consisting of 
a numerous series of illustrations of the 
Bible history, executed evidently in Eng- 
land. It will be seen that the character 
of chess as a royal game is sustained No . IS 6.-a King at Chess. 

throughout. 

In that century the game of chess had become extremely popular 
among the feudal aristocracy — including under that head all who could 
aspire to knighthood. Already, in the twelfth century, directions for 
the game had been composed in Latin verse, which seems to show that, 
in spite of the zeal of men like Cardinal Damianus, it was popular 
among the clergy. Towards the latter end of the thirteenth century, a 
French Dominican friar, Jacques de Cessoles, made the game the subject 
of a moral work, entitled " Moralitas de Scaccario," which became very 
popular in later times, was published in a French version by Jean de 
Vignay, and translated from this French version into English by 
Caxton, in his " Boke of Chesse," so celebrated among bibliographers. 
To the age of Jacques de Cessoles belongs an Anglo-Norman 
metrical treatise on chess, of which several copies are preserved in 
manuscript (the one I have used is in MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol.*i6i, 
v°), and which presents us with the first collection of games. These 
games are distinguished by quaint names, like those given to the old 
dances ; such as de firopre confusion (one's own confusion), ky fierde, sey 
sauve (the loser wins), ky est larges, est sages (he that is liberal is wise), 
mes -chief fet horn fienser (misfortune makes a man reflect), la chace de 
ferce el de chivaler (the chase of the queen and the knight), de dames el 
de damyceles (ladies and damsels), la batalie de rokes (the battle of the 
rooks), and the like. 

It is quite unnecessary to attempt to point out the numerous allusions 
to the game of chess during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when 
it continued to be extremely popular. Chaucer, in one of his minor 
poems, the " Boke of the Duchesse," introduces himself in a dream as 



226 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



playing at chess with Fortune, and speaks of false moves, as though dis- 
honest tricks were sometimes practised in the game. He tells us — 

At chesse with me she gan to pleye, 

With hir fals draughtes {moves) dyvers 

She staale on me, and toke my fers (queen) ; 

And whanne I saugh my fers awaye, 

Alias ! I kouthe no lenger playe, 

But seyde, ' ' Farewel, swete ! y wys, 

And farewel al that ever ther ys ! " 

Therwith Fortune seyde, " Chek here ! " 

And "mate" in the myd poynt of the chekkere {chess-board), 

With a powne (pawn) errante, alias ! 

Ful craftier to pleye she was 

Than Athalus, that made the game 

First of the chesse, so was hys name. 

— Robert Bell's Chaucer, vol. vi. p. 157. 

With the breaking up of feudalism, the game of chess seems to have 
gone to a great extent out of practice, and made way for a comparatively 
new game, — that of cards, which now became very popular. When 
Caxton printed his " Boke of Chesse ,; in 1474, he sought only to publish 




No. 157. — Chess in the Fifteenth Century. ' 

a moral treatise, and not to furnish his countrymen with a book of in- 
structions in the game. The cut of the chess-player given in this book, 
copied in our cut No. 157, shows some modifications in the forms of 
the chess-men. The knight, the rook, and the pawn, have preserved 



THE GAME OF CHESS. 



their old forms ; but we are led to suppose, by the number of pieces 
with the bi-partite head, that the bishop had assumed a shape nearly 
resembling that of the rook. We have just seen Chaucer alluding to 
one of the legends relating to the origin of this game. Caxton, after 
Jean de Vignay and Jacques de Cessoles, gives us a strange story how 
it was invented under Evylmerodach, king of Babylon, by a philosopher, 
" vvhyche was named in Caldee Exerses, or in Greke Philemetor." 

Meanwhile, the game of chess had continued to flourish in Italy, 
where it appears to have experienced improvements, and where certainly 
the forms of the men were considerably modified. An Italian version 
of the work of Jacques de Cessoles was printed at Florence in 1493, 
under the title of "Libro de Giuocho delli Scacchi," among the engravings 
to which, as in most of the editions of that work, there is a picture of a 
group of chess-players, who are here seated at a round table. The 
chess-board is represented in our cut, No. 158, and it will be seen at a 




No. 158. — An Italian Chess-board. 

glance that the chess-men present a far greater resemblance to those 
used at the present day than those given in the older illuminations. 
Within a few years of the date of this book, a Portuguese, named Dami- 
ano, who was perhaps residing in Italy, as his work seems to have 
appeared there first, drew up a book of directions for chess with a set 
of eighty-eight games, which display considerable ingenuity. An edi- 
tion of this book was published at Rome as early as 1524, and perhaps 
this was not the first. The figures of the chess-men are given in this 
treatise ; that of the king is vase-shaped, not unlike our modern chess- 
king, but with two crowns ; the queen is similar in shape, but has one 
crown ; the delfino (bishop) differs from them in being smaller, and 
having no crown ; the cavallo (knight) has the form of a horse's head ; 
the rocho, as it is still called, is in the form of a tower, like our modern 



228 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

castle ; and the pedona (pawn) resembles a cone, with a knob at the 
apex. In England, the game of chess seems not to have been much in 
vogue during the sixteenth century; it is, I believe, only alluded to 
once in Shakespeare, in a well-known scene in the Tempest, which may 
have been taken from a foreign story to which he owed his plot. The 
name of the game had been corrupted into chests or cheasts. The game 
of chess was expressly discouraged by our " Solomon," James I., as 
"overwise and philosophicke a folly." An attempt to bring it into 
more notice appears to have been made early in the reign of Elizabeth, 
under the patronage of Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards the celebrated 
Earl of Leicester, who displayed on many occasions a taste for refine- 
ments of this sort. Instructions were again sought from Italy through 
France ; for there was printed and published in London, in the year 
1562, a little volume dedicated to Lord Robert Dudley, under the title 
of " The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts reniewed, with In- 
structions both to Learn it Easily and to Play it Well ; lately translated 
out of Italian into French, and now set forth in Englishe by James 
Rowbotham." Rowbotham gives us some remarks of his own on the 
character of the game, and on the different forms of the chess-men, 
which are not uninteresting. He says: — "As for the fashion of the 
pieces, that is according to the fantasie of the workman, which maketh 
them after this manner. Some make them lyke men, whereof the 
kynge is the highest, and the queene (whiche some name amasone or 
layde) is the next, bothe two crowned. The bishoppes some name 
alphins, some fooles, and some name them princes, lyke as also they 
are next Unto the kinge and queene, other some cal them archers, and 
thei are fashioned accordinge to the wyll of the workeman. The 
knights some call horsemen, and thei are men on horse backe. The 
rookes some cal elephantes, cariyng towres upon their backes, and men 
within the towres. The paunes some cal fote men, as they are 
souldiours on fote, cariyng some of them pykes, other some harque- 
bushes, other some halbards, and other some the javelyn and target 
Other makers of cheastmen make them of other fashions ; but the use 
thereof wyll cause perfect knowledge." " Our Englishe cheastmen," he 
adds, " are commonly made nothing like unto these foresayde fashions : 
to wit, the kynge is made the highest or longest ; the queene is longest 



DICE-PLA YING. 



229 



nexte unto him ; the bishoppe is made with a sharpe toppe, and cloven 
in the middest not muche unlyke to a bishop's myter ; the knight hath 
his top cut asloope, as thoughe beynge dubbed knight ; the rooke is 
made lykest to the kynge and the queene, but that he is not so long; 
the paunes be made the smallest and least of all, and thereby they may 
best be knowen." 

At an early period the German tribes, as known to the Romans, were 
notoriously addicted to gambling. We are informed by Tacitus that a 
German in his time would risk not only his property, but his own per- 
sonal liberty, on a throw of the dice ; and if he lost, he submitted 
patiently, as a point of honour, to be bound by his opponent, and 
carried to the market to be sold into slavery. The Anglo-Saxons ap- 
pear to have shared largely in this passion, and their habits of gambling 
are alluded to by different writers. A well-known writer of the first half 
of the twelfth century, Ordericus Vitalis, tells us that in his time even 
the prelates of the Church were in the habit of playing at dice. A still 
more celebrated writer, John of Salisbury, who lived a little later in the 
same century, speaks of dice-playing as being then extremely prevalent, 
and enumerates no less than ten different games, which he names in 
Latin, as follows : — tessera, calculus, tabula (tables), urio vel Dardana 
pugna (Troy fight), tricolus, senio (sice), monarchus, orbiculi, taliorchus, 
and vulpes (the game of fox). — " De Nugis Curialium," lib. i. c. 5. 
The sort of estimation in which the game was then held is curiously 
illustrated by an anecdote in the Carlovingian romance of " Parise la 
Duchesse," where the king of the Hungarians wishes to contrive some 
means of testing the real character (aristocratic or plebeian) of his 
foundling, young Hugues, not then known to be the son of the Duchess 
Parise. A party of robbers (which appears not to have been a specially 
disreputable avocation among the Hungarians of the romance) are 
employed, first to seduce the youth to Ci the chess and the dice," and 
afterwards to lead him against his will to a thieving expedition, the 
object of which was to rob the treasury of the king, his godfather. 
They made a great hole in the wall, and thrust Hugues through it. 
The youth beheld the heaps of gold and silver with astonishment, but, re- 
solving to touch none of the wealth he saw around him, his eyes fell upon 
a coffer on which lay three dice, " made and pointed in fine ivory " — 



230 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Garde sor i. escrin, si a veil iij. dez, 
Qui sont de fin yvoire et fait et pointure. 

— Parise la Duchesse, p. 94. 

Hugues seized the three dice, thrust them into his bosom, and, return- 
ing through the breach in the wall, told the robbers that he had carried 
away " the worth of four cities." When the robbers heard his explana- 
tion, they at once concluded, from the taste he had displayed on this 
occasion, that he was of gentle blood, and the king formed the same 
opinion on the result of this trial. 

During the period of which we are now speaking — the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries — the use of dice had spread itself from the highest 
to the very lowest class of the population. In its simpler form, that of 
the game' of hazard, in which the chance of each player rested on the 
mere throw of the dice, it was the common game of the low frequenters 
of the taverns, — that class which lived upon the vices of society, and 
which was hardly looked upon as belonging to society itself. The 




Mediaeval Gamblers. 



practice and results of gambling are frequently referred to in the popular 
writers of the later Middle Ages. People could no longer stake their 
personal liberty on the throw, but they played for everything they had 
— even for the clothes they carried upon them, on which the tavern- 
keepers, who seem to have acted also as pawnbrokers, readily lent 
small sums of money. We often read of men who got into the 
taverner's hands, playing as well as drinking themselves naked ; and in 
a well-known manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century 
(MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 167, v°)we find an illumination which represents 
this process very literally (cut No. 159). One, who is evidently the 
more aged ot the two players, is already perfectly naked, whilst the 
other is reduced to his shirt. The illuminator appears to have intended 



DICE-PLA YING. 



231 



to represent them as playing against each other till neither had anything 
left, like the two celebrated cats of Kilkenny, who ate one another up 
until nothing remained but their tails. 

A burlesque parody on the Church Service, written in Latin, perhaps 
as early as the thirteenth century, and printed in the " Reliquiae 
Antiquae," gives us rather a curious picture of tavern manners at that 
early period. The document is profane, — much more so than any of 
the parodies for which Hone was prosecuted ; 
but it is only a moderate example of the general 
laxness in this respect which prevailed, even 
among the clergy, in what have been called 
" the ages of faith." This is entitled " The 
Mass of the Drunkards," and contains a run- 
ning allusion to the throwing of the three dice, 
and to the loss of clothing which followed ; but 
it is full of Latin puns on words of the Church 
Service, and the greater part of it would not 
bear a translation. 

It will have been already remarked that, in 
all these anecdotes and stories, the ordinary 

number of the dice is three. This appears to have been the number used 
in most of the common games. In our cut No. 1 60, taken from the illumi- 
nation in a copy of Jean de Vignay's translation of " Jacobus de Ces- 
solis " (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.) the dice-player appears to hold but two dice 
in his hand; but this is to be laid solely to the charge of the draughtsman's 
want of skill, as the text tells us distinctly that he has three. We learn also 
from the text, that in the jug he holds in his right hand he carries his 
money, a late example of the use of earthen vessels for this purpose. 
Two dice were, however, sometimes used, especially in the game of 
hazard, which appears to have been the great gambling game of the 
Middle Ages. Chaucer, in the " Pardonere's Tale," describes the hazard- 
ous as playing with two dice. But in the curious scene in the 
"Towneley Mysteries" (p. 241), a work apparently contemporary with 
Chaucer, the tormentors, or executioners, are introduced throwing for 
Chiist's unseamed garment with three dice ; the winner throws fifteen 
points, which could only be thrown with that number of dice. 




No. 160. — A Dice-Player. 




232 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

It would not seem easy to give much ornamentation to the form of 
dice without destroying their utility, yet this has been attempted at 
various times, and not only in a very grotesque but in a similar manner 
at very distant periods. This was done by giving the die the form of a 

man, so doubled up, that when thrown 
he fell in different positions, so as to 
show the points uppermost, like an 
ordinary die. The smaller example 
represented in our cut No. 161 is 
No. ^.-Ornamental Dice. Roman, and made of silver, and sev- 

eral Roman dice of the same form are known. It is singular that the 
same idea should have presented itself at a much later period, and, as 
far as we can judge, without any room for supposing that it was by imi- 
tation. Our second example, which is larger than the other, and carved 
in box-wood, is of German work, and apparently as old as the beginning 
of the sixteenth century. Both are now in the fine and extensive col- 
lection of the late Lord Londesborough. 

The simple throwing of the dice was rather an excitement than an 
amusement ; and at an early period people sought the latter by a com- 
bination of the dice-throwing with some other system of movements or 
calculations. In this way, no doubt, originated the different games 
enumerated by John of Salisbury, the most popular of which was that 
of tables {tabula or tabulce). This game was in use among the Romans, 
and was in all probability borrowed from them by the Anglo-Saxons, 
among whom it was in great favour, and who called the game tcefel 
(evidently a mere adoption of the Latin name), and the dice teoselas 
and tcefel-stanas. The former evidently represents the Latin tessellce, 
little cubes ; and the latter seems to show that the Anglo-Saxon dice 
were usually made of stones. At a later period, the game of tables, 
used nearly always in the plural, is continually mentioned along with 
chess, as the two most fashionable and aristocratic games in use. An 
early and richly illuminated manuscript in the British Museum — per- 
haps of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Harl. No. 1257) 
— -furnishes us with the figures of players at tables represented in 
our cut No. 162. The table, or board, with bars or points, is here 
clearly delineated, and we see that the players use both dice and 



BACKGAMMON. 



'33 



men, or pieces— the latter round discs, like our modern draughts- 
men. In another manuscript, belonging to a rather later period 
of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol. 157, v°), we 
have a diagram which shows the board as composed of two tables, 
represented in our cut No. 163. It was probably this construc- 
tion which caused the name to be used in the plural; and as the 
Anglo-Saxons always used the 
name in the singular, as is the 
case also with John of Salisbury 
in the twelfth century, while the 
plural is always used by the / \A1 \ A !3> ^ 
writers of a later date, we seem 
justified in concluding that the 
board used by the Anglo-Saxons " 
and Anglo-Normans consisted of 
one table, like that represented in our cut No. 162, and that this was 
afterwards superseded by the double board. It is hardly necessary to 




No. 162. — A Party at Tables. 



vWxA/V 

/wvw 



\AAAAAy 
/WVW 



No. 163. — A Table-Board (Backgammon) of the Fourteenth Century. 

point out to our readers that these two pictures of the boards show us 
clearly that the mediaeval game of tables was identical with our modern 
backgammon, or rather, we should perhaps say, that the game of back- 
gammon, as now played, is one of the games played on the tables. 
In the manuscript last quoted (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii.) the figure of the 



234 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

board is given to illustrate a very curious treatise on the game of tables, 
written in Latin, in the fourteenth, or even perhaps in the thirteenth 
century. The writer begins by informing us, that " there are many 
games at tables with dice, of which the first is the long game, and is 
the game of the English, and it is common, and played as follows " 
(multi sunt Indi ad tabulas cttm taxillis, quorum primus est longus Indus, et 
est ludus Anglicorum, et est communis, et est talis natures), meaning, I 
presume, that it was the game usually played in England. From the 
directions given for playing it, this game seems to have had a close 
general resemblance to backgammon. The writer of the treatise says 
that it was played with three dice, or with two dice, in which latter case 
they counted six at each throw for the third dice. In some of the other 
games described here, two dice only were used. We learn from this 
treatise the English terms for two modes of winning at the " long game" 
of tables — the one being called " lympoldyng," the other " lurchyng ; " 
and a person losing by the former was said to be " lympolded." The 
writer of this tract gives directions for playing at several other games of 
tables, and names some of them — such as " paume carie," the Lombard's 
game (Indus Lombardoruni), the " imperial," the " provincial," " baralie," 
and " faylys." 

. This game continued long to exist in England under its old name of 
tables. Thus Shakespeare : — 

This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, 
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice. 

- — Love 's Labour Lost, Act v. Sc. 2. 

The game appears at this time to have been a favourite one in the 
taverns and ordinaries. Thus, in a satirical tract in verse, printed in 
1600, we are told of — 

An honest vicker, and a kind consort, 
That to the alehouse friendly would resort, 
To have a game at tables now and than, 
Or drinke his pot as soone as any man. 

— Letting of Humours Blood, 1600. 

And one of the most popular of the satirical writers of that period, 
Dekker, in his " Lanthorne and Candle-Light," printed in 1620, says, 
punningly, — " And knowing that your most selected gallants are the 



DRAUGHTS. 



235 



onelye table-men that are plaid withal at ordinaries, into an ordinarye did 
he most gentleman-like convay himselfe in state." We learn from 
another tract of the same author, the " Gul's Hornbooke," that the table- 
men at this time were usually painted. 

We hardly perceive how the name of tables disappeared. It seems 
probable that at this time the game of tables meant simply what we now 
call backgammon, a word the oldest mention of which, so far as I have 
been able to discover, occurs in Howell's "Familiar Letters," first printed 
in 1646. It is there written baggamon. In the " Compleat Gamester," 
1674, backgammon and ticktack occur as two distinct games at what 
would have formerly been called tables ; and another similar game was 
called Irish. Curiously enough, in the earlier part of the last century the 
game of backgammon was most celebrated as a favourite game among 
country parsons. 




No. 164. — A Game at Draughts. 

Another game existing in the Middle Ages, but much more rarely 
alluded to, was called dames, or ladies, and has still preserved that name 
in French. In English, it was changed for that of draughts, derived no 
doubt from the circumstance of drawing the men from one square to 
another. Our cut No. 164, taken from a manuscript in the British 
Museum of the beginning of the fourteenth century, known commonly 
as Queen Mary's Psalter (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), represents a lady and 
gentlemen playing at dames, or draughts, differing only from the 
character of the game at the present day in the circumstance that the 
draughtsmen are evidently square. 



236 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



The mediaeval games were gradually superseded by a new contriv- 
ance, that of playing-cards, which were introduced into Western 
Europe in the course of the fourteenth century. It has been suggested 
that the idea of playing-cards was taken from chess — in fact, that they 
are the game of chess transferred to paper, and without a board, 
and they are generally understood to have been derived from the 
East. Cards, while they possessed some of the characteristics of chess, 
presented the same mixture of chance and skill which distinguished the 
game of tables. An Italian writer, probably of the latter part of the 
fifteenth century, named Cavelluzzo, author of a history of " Viterbo," 




No. 165. — Cards in the Fourteenth Century. 

states that "in the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of 
cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them 
called naib." Cards are still in Spanish called naipes, which is said to 
be derived from the Arabic : but they were certainly known in the West 
of Europe before the date given by Cavelluzzo. Our cut No. 165 is 
taken from a very fine manuscript of the romance of " Meliadus," in the 
British Museum (MS. Addit. 12,228, fol. 313, v°), which was written 
apparently in the south of France between the years 1330 and 1350; 
it represents a royal party playing at cards, which was therefore con- 



THE GAME OF CARDS. 



237 



sidered at that time as the amusement of the highest classes of society. 
They are, however, first distinctly alluded to in history in the year 1393. 
In that year Charles VI. of France was labouring under a visitation of 
insanity; and we find in the accounts of his treasurer, Charles Poupart, 
an entry to the following effect : — " Given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, 
painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and diversely coloured, and orna- 
mented with several devices, to deliver to the lord the king for his 
amusement, fifty-six sols of Paris." It is clear from this entry that the 
game of cards was then tolerably well known in France, and that it was 
by no means new, though it was evidently not a common game, and the 




No. 166. — Cards in the Fifteenth Century. 

cards had to be made by a painter — that is, as I suppose, an illumina- 
tor of manuscripts. We find as yet no allusion to them in England ; 
and it is remarkable that neither Chaucer, nor any of the numerous 
writers of his and the following age, ever speak of them. An illumin- 
ated manuscript of apparently the earlier part of the fifteenth century, 
perhaps of Flemish workmanship (it contains a copy of Raoul de 
Presle's French translation of St Augustine's " Civitas Dei "), presents 
us with another card-party, which we give in our cut No. 166. Three 
persons are here engaged in the game, two of whom are ladies. After 
the date at which three packs of cards were made for the amusement of 



238 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

the lunatic king, the game of cards seems soon to have become common 
in France ; for less than four years later — on the 226" of January 1397 — 
the Provost of Paris considered it necessary to publish an edict, forbid- 
ding working people to play at tennis, bowls, dice, cards, or ninepins, 
on working days. By one of the acts of the Synod of Langres, in 1404, 
the clergy were expressly forbidden to play at cards. These had now 
made their way into Germany, and had become so popular there, that 
early in the fifteenth century card-making had become a regular trade. 

In England, in the third year of the reign of Edward IV. (1463), the 
importation of playing-cards, probably from Germany, was forbidden, 
among other things, by act of parliament ; and as that act is understood 
to have been called for by the English manufacturers, who suffered by 
the foreign trade, it can hardly be doubted that cards were then manufac- 
tured in England on a rather extensive scale. Cards had then, indeed, 
evidently become very popular in England; and only twenty years after- 
wards they are spoken of as the common Christmas game, for Margery 
Paston wrote as follows to her husband, John Paston, on the 24th of De- 
cember in 1483 : — " Please it you to weet (know) that I sent your eldest 
son John to my Lady Morley, to have knowledge of what sports were used 
in her house in the Christmas next following after the decease of my 
lord her husband ; and she said that there were none disguisings, nor 
harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud disports, but playing at 
the tables, and the chess, and cards — such disports she gave her folks 

leave to play, and none other I sent your younger son to the 

Lady Stapleton, and she said according to my Lady Morley's saying in 
that, and as she had seen used in places of worship {gentlemen 's houses) 
there as she had been." 

From this time the mention of cards becomes frequent. They formed 
the common amusement in the courts of England and Scotland under 
the reigns of Henry VII. and James IV. ; and it is recorded that when 
the latter monarch paid his first visit to his affianced bride, the young 
Princess Margaret of England, "he founde the quene playing at the 
cardes." 

/ It must not be forgotten that it is partly to the use of playing-cards 

'that we owe the invention which has been justly regarded as one of the 

greatest benefits granted to mankind. The first cards, as we have seen, 



THE ORIGIN OF PRINTING. 239 

were painted with the hand. They were subsequently made more 
rapidly by a process called stencilling — that is, by cutting the rude 
forms through a piece of pasteboard, parchment, or thin metal, which, 
placed on the cardboard intended to receive the impression, was brushed 
over with ink or colour, which passed through the lines cut out, and 
imparted the figure to the material beneath. A further improvement 
was made by cutting the figures on blocks of wood, and literally printing 
them on the cards. These card-blocks are supposed to have given the 
first idea of wood-engraving. When people saw the effects of cutting 
the figures of the cards upon blocks, they began to cut figures of saints 
on blocks in the same manner, and then applied the method to other 
subjects, cutting in like manner the few words of necessary explanation. 
This practice further expanded itself into what are called block-books, 
consisting of pictorial subjects, with copious explanatory text. Some 
one at length hit upon the idea of cutting the pages of a regular book 
on so many blocks of wood, and taking impressions on paper or 
vellum, instead of writing the manuscript ; and this plan was soon 
further improved by cutting letters or words on separate pieces of wood, 
and setting them up together to form pages. The wood was subse- 
quently superseded by metal. And thus originated the noble art of 
Printing. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Domestic Amusements after Dinner. — The Chamber and its Furniture. — 
Pet Animals. — Occupations and Manners of the Ladies. — Supper. — 
Candles, Lamps, and Lanterns. 

WHEN the dinner was over, and hands washed, a drink was served 
round, and then the ladies left the table, and went to their , 
chambers or to the garden or fields, to seek their own amusements, 
which consisted frequently of dancing, in which they were often joined 
by the younger of the male portion of the household, while the others 
remained drinking. They seem often to have gone to drink in another 
apartment, or secondary hall, perhaps in the parlour. In the romance of 
" La Violette " (p. 159), we read of the father of a family going to sleep 
after dinner. In the same romance (p. 152), the young ladies and 
gentlemen of a noble household are described as spreading themselves 
over the castle, to amuse themselves, attended by minstrels with music. 
From other romances we find that this amusement consisted often in 
dancing, and that the ladies sometimes sang for themselves, instead of 
having minstrels, We find these amusements alluded to in the fabliaux 
and romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In one of 
the fabliaux, a knight having been received hospitably at a feudal 
castle, after dinner they wash, and drink round, and then they go to 
dance — 

Ses mains 
Lava, et puis 1' autre gent toute, 
Et puis se burent tout a. route, 
Et por l'amor dou chevalier 
Se vont trestuit apparillier 
De faire karoles et dances. 

In the early English romance of " Sir Degrevant," after dinner the ladies 



AFTER-DINNER AMUSEMENTS. 241 



go to their chambers to arrange themselves, and then some proceed to 
amuse themselves in the garden — 

When the lordys were drawin (withdrawn), 
Ladyes rysen, was not to leyn, 
And wentten to chaumbur ageyne, 

Anon thei hom dythus (dight) ; 
Dame Mildore and hyr may (maid) 
Went to the orcherd to play. 

In the romance ot "Lanfal" we have the same circumstance of dancing 
after dinner : — 

And after mete Syr Gaweyn, 
Sir Gyeryes and Agrafayn, 

And Syr Launfal also, 
Went to daunce upon the grene, 
Unther the tour ther lay the quene, 
Wyth syxty ladyes and mo. 



They hadde menstrayles (minstrels) of moch, honours, 
Fydelers, sytolyrs, and trompours, 

And elles hyt were unryght ;. 
Ther they playde, for sothe to say, 
After mete the somerys day, 

All what (till) hyt was neygh nyght. 

It was only on extraordinary occasions, however, that the dancing or 
walking in the garden continued all day. In the romance of " Blonde 
of Oxford," the dinner-party quit the table to wander in the fields and 
forests round the castle, and the young hero of the story, on their return 
thence, goes to play in the chambers with the ladies : — ■ 

Apres manger lavent leurs mains, 
Puis s'en vont juer, qui ains ains, 
Ou en fores ou en rivieres, 
Ou en deduis d'autres manieres. 
Jehans au quel que il veut va, 
Et quant il revent souvant va 
Jouer es chambres la contesse 
O les dames. 

There were two classes of dances in the Middle Ages — the domestic 
dances, and the dances of the jougleurs or minstrels. After the first 
Crusades, the Western jougleurs had adopted many of the practices of 
their brethren in the East, and among others it is evident from many allu- 
sions in old writers that they had brought westward that of the " almehs," 



24: 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



or Eastern dancing-girls. These dances formed, like the vulgar fabliaux, 
a part of the jougleur's budget of representations, and were mostly, like 
those, gross and indecent. The other class of dances was of a simpler 
character, — the domestic dances, which consisted chiefly of the carole, 
in which ladies and gentlemen alternately held by each other's hands 
and danced in a circle. This mode of dance prevailed so generally, 
that the word carole became used as a general term for a dance, and 
caroler, to carole, was equivalent with to dance. The accompanying cut 
(No. 167), taken from a manuscript of the "Roman de Tristan," of the 







No. 167. — Dancing the Carole. 

fourteenth century, in the National Library at Paris (No. 6956), repre- 
sents a party dancing the carole to the music of pipe and tabor. A 
dance of another description is represented in our next cut (No. 168), 
taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 
174), also of the fourteenth century. Here the minstrels themselves 
appear to be joining in the saltitation which they inspire. It is a good 
illustration of the scene described from the romance of " La Violette." 
On festive occasions this dancing often continued till supper-time. 

Other quieter games were pursued in the chambers. Among these 
the most dignified was chess, after which came tables, draughts, and, in 
the fourteenth century, cards. Sometimes, as described in the preced- 
ing chapter, they played at sedentary games, such as chess and tables ; 
or at diversions of a still more frolicsome character. These latter seem 
to have been most in vogue in the evening after supper. The author 



IN-DOOR AMUSEMENTS. 



243 



of the " Menagier de Paris," written about the year 1393 (torn. i. p. 71), 
describes the ladies as playing, in an evening, at games named brie, and 
quiferyl (who struck?), and pince merille, and tiers, and others. The 
first of these games is mentioned about a century and a half earlier by 
the trouvere Rutebeuf, and by other mediaeval writers ; but all we seem 




No. 168. — A Mediaeval Dance. 

to know of it is, that the players were seated, apparently on the ground, 
and that one of them was furnished with a rod or stick. We know less 
still oi pince merille. Qui fery 1 is evidently the game which was, at a 
later period, called hot-cockles ; and tiers is understood to be the game 
now called blindman's buff. These, and other games, are not unfre- 
quently represented in the fanciful drawings in the margins of mediaeval 




No. 169. — The Game of Hoodman-blind. 

illuminated manuscripts ; but as no names or descriptions are given 
with these drawings, it is often very difficult to identify them. Our cut 
No. 169, which is given by Strutt, from a manuscript in the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford, is one of several subjects representing the game of 
blindman's buff, or, as it was formerly called in England, hoodman-blind, 



244 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



because the person blinded had his eyes covered with a hood. It is 

here played by females, but, in other illuminations, or drawings, the 

players are boys or men — the latter plainly indicated by their beards. 

The word hoodman-blind is not found at an earlier period than the 

Elizabethan age, yet this name, from its allusion to the costume, was 

evidently older. A personage in Skakespeare (Hamlet, Act iii. 

Scene 4) asks — 

What devil was 't 
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind ' ? 

Hot-cockles seems formerly to have been a very favourite game. One 




No. 170. — A Game at Hot-cockles. 

of the players was blindfolded, and knelt down, with his face generally 




No. 171. — Shepherds and Shepherdesses. 

on the knee of another, and his hand held out flat behind him ; the other 
players in turn struck him on the hand, and he was obliged to guess at 



THE GAME OF HOT-COCKLES. 245 

the name of the striker, who, if he guessed right, was compelled to take 
his place. A part of the joke appears to have consisted in the hard- 
ness of the blow. Our cut No. 170, from the Bodleian manuscript 
(which was written in 1344), is evidently intended to represent a 
party of females playing at hot-cockles, though the damsel who plays 
the principal part is not blindfolded, and she is touched on the back, 
and not on the hand. Our next cut (No. 171), which represents a party 
of shepherds and shepherdesses engaged in the same game, is taken 
from a piece of Flemish tapestry, of the fifteenth century, which is 
to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. Allusions to this 
game are found in the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. Among the " commendatory verses " to the second edition of 
" Gondibert " (by William Davenant), printed in 1653, is the following 
rather curious piece of wit, which explains itself, and is, at the same 
time, an extremely good description of this game : — ■ 

THE POET'S HOT-COCKLES. 

Thus poets, passing time away, 

Like children at hot-cockles play ; 

All strike by turn, and Will is strook 

(And he lies down that writes a book). 

Have at thee, Will, for now I come, 

Spread thy hand faire upon thy bomb ; 

For thy much insolence, bold bard, 

And little sense I strike thus hard. 

" Whose hand was that ? " " 'Twas Jaspar Mayne." 

" Nay, there you're out ; lie down again." 

With Gondibert, prepare, and all 

See where the doctor comes to maul 

The author's hand, 'twill make him reel ; 

No, Will lies still, and does not feel. 

That book 's so light, 'tis all one whether 

You strike with that or with a feather. 

But room for one, new come to town, 

That strikes so hard, he '11 knock him down, 

The hand he knows, since it the place 

Has touched more tender than his face ; 

Important sheriff, now thou lyst down, 

We '11 kiss thy hands, and clap our own. 

The game of hot-cockles has only become obsolete in recent times, if 
it be even now quite out of use. Most readers will remember the pas- 
sage in Gay's " Pastorals : " — 



246 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



As at hot-cockles once I laid me down, 
And felt the weighty hand of many a clown, 
Buxoma gave a gentle tap, and I 
Quick rose, and read soft mischief in her eye. 

This passage is aptly illustrated by the cut from the tapestry. The 
same Bodleian manuscript gives us a playful group, reproduced in our 
cut No. 172, which Strutt believes to be the game called, in more 
modern times, " frog-in-the-middle." One of the party, who played 
frog, sat on the ground, while his, or her, comrades surrounded and 
buffeted him, until he could catch and hold one of them, who then had 
to take his place. In our cut, the players are females. 

Games of questions and commands, and of forfeits, were also com- 




-^3 



No. 172. — The Game of Frog-in-the-middle. 



mon in mediaeval society. Among the poems of Baudouin and Jean 
de Conde (poets of the thirteenth century), we have a description of a 
game of this kind. " One time," we are told, " they were at play among 
ladies and damsels : there were among them both clever and hand- 
some ; they took up many games, until, at last, they elected a queen to 
play at roy-qui-ne-ment (the king who does not lie) ; she, whom they 
chose, was clever at commands and at questions : " — 

Une foi ierent en dosnoi 

Entre dames et damoiselles ; 

De cointes i ot et de belles. 

De plusieurs deduits s'entremish-ent, 

Et tant c'une royne fistrent 

Pour jouer au roy-qui-ne-ment. 

Ele s'en savoit fmement 

Entremettre de commander 

Et de demandes demander. 

— Barbazan, Fabliaux, torn. i. p. 1 00. 



THE GAME OF RAGMAN'S ROLL. 247 

The aim of the questions was, of course, to provoke answers which 
would excite mirth ; and the sequel of the story shows the great want 
of delicacy which prevailed in mediaeval society. Another sort of 
amusement was furnished by what may be called games of chance ; in 
which the players, in turn, drew a character at hazard. These charac- 
ters were generally written in verse, in burlesque and often very coarse 
language, and several sets of them have been preserved in old manu- 
scripts. They consist of a series of alternate good and bad characters, 
sometimes only designed for females, but at others for women and men : 
two of these sets (printed in my " Anecdota Literaria ") were written in 
England ; one, of the thirteenth century, in Anglo-Norman, the other, 
of the fifteenth century, in English. From these we learn that the 
game, in England, was called Rageman, or Ragman, and that the verses, 
describing the characters, were written on a roll called Ragman's 
Roll, and had strings attached to them, by which each person drew 
his or her chance. The English set has a short preface, in which the 
author addresses himself to the ladies, for whose special use it was 
compiled : — 

My ladyes and my maistresses echone, 
Lyke hit unto your humbylle wommanhede 
Resave in gre {good part) of my sympille persone, 
This rolle, which withouten any drede', 
Kynge Ragman me bad mesoure in brede. 
And cristyned yt the meroure of your chaunce ; 
Draweth a strynge, and that shal streight yow leyde 
Unto the verry path of your governaunce— 

i.e., it will tell you exactly how you behave yourself, what is your 
character. This game is alluded to by the poet Gower in the " Con- 
fessio Amantis : " — 

Venus, whiche stant withoute lawe, \ 

In non certeyne, but as men drawe 

Of Ragemon upon the chaunce, 

Sche leyeth no peys {weight) in the balaunce. 

The ragman's roll, when rolled up for use, would present a confused 
mass of strings hanging from it, probably with bits of wax at the end, 
from which the drawer had to select one. This game possesses a 
peculiar historical interest. When the Scottish nobles and chieftains 
acknowledged their dependence on the English crown in the reign of 



248 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Edward I., the deed by which they made this acknowledgment, having 
all their seals hung to it, presented, when rolled up, much the appearance 
of the roll used in this game ; and hence, no doubt, they gave it in de- 
rision the name of the Ragman's Roll. Afterwards it became the custom 
to call anyroll with many signatures, or any long catalogue, the various 
headlings of which were perhaps marked by strings, by the same name. 
This game of chance or fortune was continued, under other names, to a late 
period. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the burlesque charac- 
ters were often inscribed on the back of roundels, which were no doubt 
dealt round to the company like cards, with the inscribed side downwards. 
-Sometimes the ladies and young men indulged within doors in more 
active games — among which we may mention especially different games 
with the ball, and also, perhaps, the whipping-top. We learn from 
many sources that hand-ball was from a very early period a favourite 
-recreation with the youth of both sexes. It 
is a subject not unfrequently met with in the 
marginal drawings of mediseval manuscripts. 
The annexed example (cut No. 173), from 
MS. Harl. No. 6563, represents apparently 
two ladies playing with a ball. In other in- 
stances, a lady and a gentleman are similarly 
tL. occupied. Our cut No. 174 is taken from 




No. 173 — Bait-Playing. 



one of the carvings of the miserere seats in 
Gloucester Cathedral. The long tails of the 
hoods belong to the costume of the latter part of the fourteenth century. 




No. 174. — A Game at Ball. 

The whipping-top was also a plaything of considerable antiquity ; I 



GAMES OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 



249 



think it may be traced to the Anglo-Saxon period. Our cut No. 175 is 
taken from one of the marginal drawings of a well-known manuscript in 
the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) of the beginning of the four- 
teenth century. It may be remarked that the knots on the lashes merely 
mark a conventional manner of representing a whip, for every boy 
knows that a knotted whip would not do for a top. Mediaeval art was 
full of such conventionalities. 

Most of these recreations of young people in the Middle Ages were 
gradually left to a still younger age, and became children's games, and 
of these the margins of the illuminated manuscripts furnish abundant 
examples. One of these (taken from the margin of the Royal MS., 10 




No. 175 — Whipping-Top. 

E. iv., of the fourteenth century) will be sufficient for the present 
occasion. A favourite game, during at least the later periods of the 
Middle Ages, was that which is now called nine-pins. The French gave 
it the name of quiiles, which in our language was corrupted into keyles 




No. 176. — The Game of Kay-les. 



and kayles. The lad in our cut (No. 176) is not, as at present, bowling 
at the pins, but throwing with a stick, a form of the game which was 
called in French the jeic de quilles a baston, and in English club-kayles. 



! 5 o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Money was apparently played for, and the game was looked upon as 
belonging to the same class as hazard. In a series of metrical counsels 
to apprentices, compiled in the fifteenth century, and printed in the 
"Reliquiae Antiquae," ii. 223, they are recommended to — 

Exchewe allewey eville company, 
Caylys, carding, and haserdy. 

When no gaiety was going on, the ladies of the household were em- 
ployed in occupations of a more useful description, among which the 
principal were spinning, weaving, knitting, embroidering, and sewing. 
Almost everything of this kind was done at home at the period of which 
we are now speaking, and equally in the feudal castle or manor, and in 
the house of the substantial burgher, the female part of the family spent 
a great part of their time in different kinds of work in the chambers of 
the lady of the household. Such work is alluded to in mediaeval writers. 
from time to time, and we find it represented in illuminated manuscripts, 
but not so frequently as some of the other domestic scenes. In the 
romance of the " Death of Garin le Loherain," when the Count Fromont 
visited the chamber of fair Beatrice, he found her occupied in sewing a 
very beautiful chainsil, or petticoat : — 

Vint en la chambre a. la Beatriz ; 
Ele cosoit un molt riche chainsil. 

— Mori de Garin, p. 10. 

In the romance of " La Violette," the daughter of the burgher, in whose 
house the Count Girard is lodged, is described as being " one day seated 
in her father's chambers working a stole and amice in silk and gold, very 
skilfully, and she made in it, with care, many a little cross and many a 
star, singing all the while a chanson-a-toile" meaning, it is supposed, a 
song composed for the purpose of being sung by ladies when weaving, 
to an air which suited their movements : — 

I. jor sist es chambres son pere, 

Une estole et i. amit pere 

De soie et d'or molt soutilment ; 

Si i. fait ententevement 

Mainte croisete et mainte estoile, 

Et dist ceste chanchon a toile. 

— Roman de la Violette, p. 1 13- 



OCCUPATIONS OF THE LADIES. 



251 



In one of Rutebeuf's fabliaux, a woman makes excuse for being up late 

at night that she was anxious to finish a piece of linen cloth she was 

weaving : — ■ 

Sire, fet-elle, il me faut traimer 
A une toile que je fais. 

And in another fabliau, that of " Guillaume au Faucon," a young 





No. 177. — Embroidery. 



No. 178. — A Lady Carding 



"bacheler" entering suddenly the chamber of the ladies, finds them all 
occupied in embroidering a piece of silk with the ensigns of the lord of 
the castle. Embroidery, indeed, was a favourite occupation : a lady 




No. 179. — A Lady Spinning. 

thus employed is represented in our cut No. 177, taken from a richly 
illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum 
(MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) The ladies, too, not only made up the cloths into 
dresses and articles of other kinds, but they were extensively employed 
in the various processes of making the cloth itself. Our cut No. 178, 



25: 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



taken from a manuscript of about the same period (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), 
represents the process of carding the wool ; and the 
same manuscript furnishes us with another cut (No. 
179), in which a lady appears in the employment 
of spinning it into yarn. Spinning was supposed 
to have been the original occupation of the female 
sex. It was a favourite proverb among the English 
popular insurgents in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries : — 




No. 180.— The Three' Fates. 



When Adam dalve, and Eve span, 
Who was then the gentleman ? 



And, as I have before remarked, we find the ladies thus employed in 
the illuminated manuscripts of various periods. This appears, indeed, 
to have been looked upon so generally as the natural occupation of 
unmarried females, that they have received from it the legal denomina- 
tion of spinstei's. Our next cut (No. 1 80), taken from an illtfmination 
in an early French translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid (in the 
National Library, MS. 6986), represents three ladies (intended for the 
three Fates) employed in these domestic occupations, and will give us 
a notion of the implements they used. 

Domestic animals, particularly dogs and birds, were favourite com- 
panions of the ladies in their chambers. A favourite falcon had 
frequently its "perche" in a corner of the chamber; and in the 
illuminations we sometimes see the lady seated with the bird on her 
wrist. Birds in cages are also not unfrequently alluded to through the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the romance of " La Violette " 
a tame lark plays rather an important part in the story. Our cut No. 
18 r, where we see two birds in a cage together, and which is curious for 
the form of the cage, is given by Willemin from a manuscript of the 
fourteenth century at Paris. The hawk, though usually kept only for 
hunting, sometimes became a pet, and persons carried their hawks on the 
fist even in social parties within doors. The jay is spoken of as a cage- 
bird. The parrot under the name of papejay, popinjay, or papingay, is 
also often spoken of during the Middle Ages, although, in all probability, 
it was very rare. The favourite talking-bird was the pie, or magpie, 
which often plays a very remarkable part in mediaeval stories. The 



THE TELL-TALE MAGPIE. 



= 53 




No. 181. — Birds Encaged. 



aptness of this bird for imitation led to an exaggerated estimate of its 
powers, and it is frequently made to give information to the husband 
of the weaknesses of his wife. Several mediaeval stories turn upon this 
supposed quality. The good Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, in his book 
of counsels to his daughters, composed in the second half of the four- 
teenth century, tells a story of a magpie 
as a warning of the danger of indulging 
in gluttony. " I will tell you," he says, 
" a story in regard to women who eat 
dainty morsels in the absence of their 
lords. There was a lady who had a pie 
in a cage, which talked of everything 
which it saw done. Now it happened 
that the lord of the household preserved 
a large eel in a pond, and kept it very 
carefully,- in order to give it to some of 
his lords or of his friends, in case they 
should visit him. So it happened that 
the lady said to her female attendant that it would be good to eat 
the great eel, and accordingly they eat it, and agreed that they would 
tell their lord that the otter had eaten it. And when the Lord returned, 
the pie began to say to him, ' My lord, my lady has eaten the eel.' 
Then the lord went to his pond, and missed his eel ; and he went into 
the house, and asked his wife what had become of it. She thought to 
excuse herself easily, but he said that he knew all about it, and that the 
pie had told him. The result was that there was great quarrelling and 
trouble in the house ; but when the Lord was gone away, the lady and 
her female attendant Went to the pie, and plucked all the feathers from 
his head, saying, ' You told about the eel.' And so the poor pie was 
quite bald. But from that time forward, when it saw any people who 
were bald or had large foreheads, the pie said to them, ' Ah ! you told 
about the eel ! ' And this is a good example how no woman ought to eat 
any choice morsel by gluttony without the knowledge of her lord, unless 
it be to give it to people of honour ; for this lady was afterwards mocked 
and jeered for eating the eel, through the pie which complained of it." 
The reader will recognise in this the origin of a much more modern story. 



254 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



One of the stories in the celebrated mediaeval collection entitled 
" The Seven Sages," also turns upon the talkative qualities of this bird. 
There was a burgher who had a pie which, on being questioned, related 
whatever it had seen, for it spoke uncommonly well the language of the 
people. Now the burgher's wife was a good-for-nothing woman, and as 
soon as her husband went from home about business, she sent for her 
friend out of the town ; but the pie, which was a great favourite of the 
burgher, told him all the goings on when he returned, and the husband 
knew that it always spoke the truth. So he became acquainted with 
his wife's conduct. One day the burgher went from home, and told his 
wife he should not return that night, and she immediately sent for her 
friend ; but he was afraid to enter, for " the pie was hung up in his 
cage on a high perch in the middle of the porch of the house." En- 
couraged, however, by the lady, the friend ventured in, and passed 
through the hall to the chamber. The pie, which saw him pass, and 
knew him well on account of some tricks he had played upon it, called 
out, " Ah, sir ! you who are in the chamber there, why don't you pay 
your visits when the master is at home ? " It said no more all the day, 
but the lady set her wits to work for a stratagem to avert the danger. 
So when night came, she called her chamber-maiden, and gave her a 
great jug full of water, and a lighted candle, and a wooden mallet, and 
about midnight the maiden mounted on the top of the house, and began 
to beat with the mallet on the laths, and from time to time showed the 
light through the crevices, and threw the water right down upon the pie 
till the bird was wet all over. Next morning the husband came home, 
and began to question his pie. " Sir," it said, " my lady's friend has been 
here, and stayed all night, and is only just gone away. I saw him go." 
Then the husband was very angry, and was going to quarrel with his 
wife, but the pie went on — " Sir, it has thundered and lightned all night, 
and the rain was so heavy that I have been wet through." " Nay," 
said the husband, " it has been fine all night, without rain or storm." 
" You see," said the crafty dame, " you see how much your bird is to 
be believed. Why should you put more faith in him when he tells 
tales about me, than when he talks so knowingly about the weather ? " 
Then the burgher thought he had been deceived, and turning his wrath 
upon the pie, drew it from the cage and twisted its neck ; but he had 



PET ANIMALS. 255 



no sooner done so than, looking up, he saw how the laths had been 

deranged. So he got a ladder, mounted on the roof, and discovered 

the whole mystery. If, says the story, he had not been so hasty, the 

life of his bird would have been saved. In the English version of this 

series of tales, printed by Weber, the pie's cage is made to hang in the 

hall :— 

The burgeis hadde a pie in his halle, 
That couthe telle tales alle 
Apertlich {openly), in French langage, 
And heng in a faire cage. 

In the other English version, edited by the author of this work for the 
Percy Society, the bird is said to have been, not a pie, but a " popynjay," 
or parrot, and there are other variations in it which show that it had 
been taken more directly from the Oriental original, in which, as might 
be expected, the bird is a parrot. 

Among the animals mentioned as pets we sometimes find monkeys. 
One of the Latin stories in the collection printed by 
the Percy Society, tells how a rustic, entering the 
hall of a certain nobleman, seeing a monkey dressed 
' in the same suit as the nobleman's family, and sup- 
posing, as its back was turned, that it was one of his 
sons, began to address it with all suitable reverence ; 
but when he saw that it was only a monkey chat- 
tering at him, he exclaimed, " A curse upon you ! 
I thought you had been Tenkin, my lord's son."* 

b J J > J No _ l82 ._L a( jjr and Dog. 

The favourite quadruped, however, has always been 

the dog, of which several kinds are mentioned as lady's pets. Chaucer 

tells us of his prioress, — 

Of smale houndes hadde sche, that sche fedde 

With rostud fleissh and mylk and wastel breed. — Cant. Tales. 1. 147. 

Our cut No. 182, taken from a manuscript of the St Graal, in the British 

* The Latin original of this story is so quaint that it deserves to be given ipsissimis 
verbis. " De rustico et simia.—' Quidam aulam cujusdam nobilis intrans, vidensque 
simiam de secta nliorum vestitum, quia dorsum ad eum habebat, filium credidit esse 
domini, cui cum reverentia qua debuit loqueretur. Invenit esse simiam super eum 
cachinnantem, cui ille, ' Maledicaris ! ' inquit, ' credidi quod fuisses Jankyn filius 
domini mei.' " — Latin Stories, p. 122. 




256 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,293, f°l- 3 1 )* written in the thirteenth 
century, represents a queen seated in conversation, with her dog in her 
lap. The next cut (No. 183), from an illumination in the interesting 
manuscript of the " Roman de Meliadus " in the British Museum (MS. 
Addit. 12,228, fol. 310), belonging to the latter half of the fourteenth 
century (the reign of our Edward III.), represents the interior of a 
chamber, with two little dogs gambolling about. In the singular work 




No. 1S3.— Interior of a Chamber. 

on domestic economy, entitled the " Menagier de Paris," written about 
the year 1393, the lady of the household is particularly recommended 
to think of the " chamber beasts," such as little dogs, the " chamber 
birds," &c, inasmuch as these creatures, not having the gift of speech, 
could not ask for themselves.'"' I have printed in the "Reliquiae 
Antiquse " a curious Anglo-French poem, of the beginning of the four- 
teenth century, written as a satire on the ladies of the time, who were 
too fond of their dogs, and fed them delicately, while the servants were 
left to short commons (Reliq. Antiq. vol. i. p. 155). Cats are seldom 
mentioned as pets, except of ill-famed old women. There was a pre- 



* "Item, que par la dicte dame Agnes vous faciez principalment et diligemment pen- 
ser de vos bestes de chambre, comme petis chiennes, oiselets de chambre ; et aussi la 
beguine et vous pensez des autres oiseauls domesches, car ils ne pevent parler, et 
pour ce vous devez parler et penser pour eulx, se vous en avez." — Menagier de Paris, 
ii. 62. 



THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 



257 



judice against them in the Middle Ages, and they were joined in people's 
imagination with witchcraft, and with other dia- 
bolical agencies. The accompanying group of 
an old lady and her cats (cut No. 184) is taken 
from a carving on one of the misereres in the 
church of Minster, in the Isle of Thanet. 
Curiously enough, the English " Rule of Nuns," 
of the earlier half of the thirteenth century, for- 
bids the nuns to keep any " beast " but a cat. 

The chamber was, as might be expected, 
more comfortably furnished than the hall. The No. 184.— The Lady and her 

Cats 

walls were covered with curtains, or tapestry, 

whence this apartment is frequently termed in the fabliaux and romances 
the chambre encortinee. The story of a fabliau printed in my " Anecdota 
Literaria " turns upon the facility with which a person might be con- 
cealed behind the "curtains" of the chamber. Besides a bench or 
stool to sit upon, there was usually a chair in the chamber. In the 
fabliau of the " Bouchier d' Abbeville," the priest's lady, when she rises 
out of bed to dress, is represented as placing herself in a chair — 




En le caiere s'est assisse. 

In the early English romance of " Horn," the lady, receiving a gentle- 
man into her chamber, gives him a rich chair which would hold seven 
people (of course one of the wide settles of which we have given several 
examples in our illustrations), and which is covered, in true regal style, 
with a baldekin : — 

The miri maiden, also sone 

As Hatherof into chamber come, 

Sche wend (thought) that it were Horn ; 
A riche cheir was undon, 
That seiven might sit theron, 

In swiche craft y-corn {chosen). 



A baudekin theron was spred, 
Thider the maiden hadde him led 

To siten hir befoni, 
Frout (fruit) and spices sche him bede, 
Wine to drink, wite and rede, 

Bothe of coppe and horn. 



258 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



The chamber was especially distinguished by its fireplace and chimney. 
The form of the mediaeval fireplace is well-known from the numerous 
examples still remaining in the chambers of our old castles and mansion- 
houses. The fire was made on the hearth, upon iron dogs, which had 
often very ornamental forms. The old romances frequently represent 
people sitting round the chamber fireplace to hold private conversation. 
It was here also that the heads of the family, or individual members of 
it in their own chambers, assembled in the evening when no ceremonious 
feasting was going on. In a story in the text of the " Seven Sages " 
printed by Weber, a young married woman is described as sitting in the 
evening with her lord by the chamber fireside, attended by their squire, 
who stood before them, and playing with a dog — 

The yonge levedi and hire lord 
Sete an even by the fer (fire) ; 
Bifore hem stood here sqmer. 

The bichche lai in hire barm (in her bosom). 

— Weber, iii. 71. 

In " Gautier d'Aupais," when the young damsel sends for her mother, 
her messenger finds the old lady sitting on a richly-worked counterpoint 
by a coal fire (probably of charcoal) — 

Sor une courtepointe ouvre d'auqueton 
Trova seant la dame lez i. feu de charbon. 

— Gautier d'Atipais, p. 25. 

In the romance of " Sir Degrevant," when the lady Myldore has sent 
for her lover to come privately to her chamber at night, she orders her 
maiden to prepare a fire, and place fagots of fir-wood to keep it burn- 
ing— 

Damesel, loke ther be 

A fuyre in the chymene ; 

Fagattus of fyre-tre, 

That fetchyd was yare (formerly). 

— Thornton Romances, p. 234. 

A board is placed on trestles to form a table, and a dainty supper is 
served, which the lady carves for her lover, and she further treats him 
with rich wines. In the romance of "Queen Berthe" (p. 102), three 
persons, holding a secret consultation in the chamber of one of their 
party, sit on carpets (sur les tafiis); but these were no doubt embroidered 



THE SUPPER. 259 



cloths thrown over the seats. Floor-carpets were sometimes used in the 
chambers, but this was uncommon, and they seem to have been more 
usually, like the hall, strewn with rushes. It appears that sometimes, 
as a refinement in gaiety, flowers were mixed with the rushes. In a 
fabliau in Meon (i. 75), a lady who expects her lover, lights a fire in the 
chamber, and spreads rushes and flowers on the floor — 

Vient a l'ostel, lo feu esclaire, 
Jons et flors espandre par l'aire. 

There was an escrin, or cabinet, which stood against the wall, which was 
often so large that a man might conceal himself behind it. The plot of 
several mediaeval stories turns upon this circumstance. Chests and 
coffers were also kept in the chamber; and it contained generally a 
sm^ll table, or at least the board and trestles for making one, which the 
lord or lady of the house used when they would dine or sup in private. 
The practice of thus dining or supping privately in the chamber is not 
unfrequently alluded to in the old stories and romances. 

Supper, however, being the second meal in the day at which the 
whole household met together, was generally a more public one, and 
was held, like the dinner, in the hall, and with much the same forms 
and services. It was preceded and closed by the same washing of hands, 
and the table was almost as plentifully covered with viands. After 
having washed, the company drank round, and it seems to have been 
the usual custom, on leaving the supper-table, to go immediately to bed, 
for people in general kept early hours. Thus, in one of the pious stories 
printed by Meon, in describing a royal supper-party, we are told that, 
" when they had eaten and washed, they drank and then went to bed" — 

Qant orent mengie, si laverent, 
Puis burent, et couchier alerent. 

And in another story in the same collection, the lady receives a stranger 
to supper in a very hospitable manner — "when they had eaten leisurely, 
then it was time to go to bed " — 

Qant orent mengie par loisir, 
Si fu heure d'aler gesir. 

Sometimes, however, there were dancing and other amusements between 
supper and bed-time. Thus, in the romance of " Sir Degrevant," — 



2 6o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Bleve {quickly) to soper they dyght, 
Both squiere and knyght ; 
They daunsed and revelide that nyght, 
In hert were they blythe. 

In a fabliau published by Barbazan, on the arrival in a nobleman's 

castle of a knight who is treated with especial courtesy, the knights and 

ladies dance after supper, and then, at bed-time, they conduct the 

visitor to his bed-chamber, and drink with him there before they leave 

him : — 

Apres mengier, chascuns comence, 
De faire caroles et dance, 
Tant qu'il fu houre de couchier ; 
Puis anmainment le chevalier 
En sa chambre ou fait fu son lit, 
Et la. burent par grant delit ; 
Puis prinrent congi£. 

Fruit was usually eaten after supper. In a fabliau of the thirteenth 
century, a noble visitor having been received in the house of a knight, 
they go immediately to supper. "After they had done eating, they 
enjoyed themselves in conversation, and then they had fruit," and it was 
only after this that they washed — 

Apres mengier se sont deduit 
De paroles, puis si ont fruit. 

In the lay of the " Chevalier a l'Espe'e," Sir Gauwain takes, instead 
of supper, fruit and wine before he goes to bed. 

The custom of keeping early hours still prevailed, and is very fre- 
quently alluded to. People are generally described as rising with the 
sun. Such was the case with the king, in the romance of " Parise la 

Duchesse " — 

Landemain par matin, quand solaus fu levez 

Se leva li rois Hugues. — Parise, ed. P. Paris, p. 219. 

It was the custom, after rising, to attend service either in the church or 
in the private chapel. In the history of Fulke Fitz-Warine, Jose de 
Dynan, in his castle of Ludlow, rose early in the morning, heard service 
in the chapel, after which he mounted to the top of the loftiest tower, 
to take a view of the country around, then descended and "caused the 
horn to be sounded for washing." This was no doubt the signal for 
the household to assemble for breakfast. In Chaucer's " Squyere's Tale," 



TIME OF MEALS. 261 



the king's guests, after great feasting and carousing at night, sleep till 
" prime large " in the morning, that is till six o'clock, which is spoken 
of in a manner that evidently intimates that they had considerably over- 
slept themselves. The princess Canace had left her bed long before, 
and was walking with her maidens in the park. In the " Schipmanne's 
Tale," too, the lady rises very early in the morning, and takes her walk 
in the garden. In the' curious " Book " of the Chevalier de la Tour- 
Landry, we are told of a very pious dame whom he knew, whose daily 
life was as follows : — She rose early in the morning, had two friars and 
two or three chaplains in attendance to chant matins while she was 
rising ; as soon as she left her chamber she went to her chapel, and 
remained in devotion in her oratory while they said matins and one 
mass 2 and then she went and dressed and arrayed herself, after which 
she went to recreate herself in the garden or about the house ; she then 
attended divine service again, and after it went to dinner ; and during 
the afternoon she visited the sick, and in due time supped, and after 
supper called her maitre d 'hotel, and made her household arrangements 
for the following day. 

The hour of breakfast is very uncertain, and appears not to have been 
fixed. The hour of dinner was, as already stated, nine o'clock in the 
morning, or sometimes ten. In the lay of the " Mantel Mautaille'," king 
Arthur is introduced on a grand festival-day refusing, according to his 
custom, to begin the dinner till some "adventure " occurs, and the guests 
wait till near " nonne," when the grand seneschal, Sir Keux, takes upon 
himself to expostulate, and represents that dinner had been ready a long 
time (piefd). Nonne is here probably meant for mid-day, or noon. The 
queen was in her chamber, greatly distressed at having to wait so long 
for dinner. The regular hour of supper appears to have been five 
o'clock in the afternoon, but when private it seems not to have been 
fixed to any particular hour. In summer, at least, people appear usually 
to have gone to bed when darkness approached; and this was the time 
at which guests ordinarily took their leave. Thus, at January's wedding- 
feast, in Chaucer, we are told that — 



Night, with his mantel, that is dark and rude, 
Gan oversprede themesperie aboute ; 
For which departed is the lusti route 



262 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




Fro January, with thank on every side, 
Hoom to her houses lustily thay ryde. 

— Cant. Tales, 1. 9672. 

We must not forget that these remarks apply to the seasons of the year 
when days were long, for the scenes of most of these romances and tales 
are laid in the spring and summer months, and especially in May. We 
have much less information on the domestic relations during winter. 

One reason for keeping early hours was that candles and lamps were 
too expensive to be used in profusion by people in general. Various 
,4 methods of giving artificial light at night are 
mentioned, most of which seem to have been 
considered more or less as luxuries. At grand 
festivals the light was often given by men hold- 
ing torches. In general, candles were used at 
supper. The accompanying cut (No 185), taken 
No. i8s^ASupperT from the manuscript of the St Graal already men- 
tioned, represents a person supping by candle- 
light. In the fabliau of " La Borgoise d'Orliens," a lady, receiving her 
lover into her chamber, spreads a table for him, and lights a great wax 
candle (grosse chandoile de are). 

Lighting in the Middle Ages was, indeed, effected, in a manner more 
or less refined, by means of torches, lamps, and candles. The candle, 
which was the most portable of them all, was employed in small and 
private evening parties ; and, from an early period, it was used in the 
bed-chamber. For the table, very handsome candlesticks were made, 
which were employed by people of rank, and wax candles (cierges) were 
used on them. They were formed with an upright spike (broche), on 
which the candle was stuck, not, as now, placed in a socket. Thus, in 
a scene in one of the fabliaux printed by Barbazan, a good bourgeois has 
on his supper-table two candlesticks of silver, "very fair and handsome," 

with wax-candles — 

Desor la table ot deus broissins, 
Ou il avoit cierges, d'argent, 
Molt estoient bel et gent. 

— Barbazan, vol. iv. p. 184. 

So in the romance of " La Violette," when the count Lisiart arrives at 
the castle of duke Gerart, on the approach of bedtime, two men-servants 



BLOWING OUT THE CANDLE. 263 



make their appearance, each carrying a lighted cierge, or wax-candle, 

and thus they lead him to his chamber — 

Atant lor vinrent doi sergant, 
Chascuns tenoit j. cerge ardant ; 
Le conte menerent couchier. 

— La Vioktte, p. 30. 

This, however, appears to have been done as a mark of honour to the 

guest, for, even in ducal castles, common candles seem to have been 

in ordinary use. In a bed-room scene in a fabliau printed by Meon 

(torn. i. p. 268), in which the younger ladies of the duke's family and 

their female attendants slept all in beds in one room, they have but one 

candle (chandoile) and that is. attached to the wood of the bed of the 

duke's daughter, so that it would appear to have had no candlestick. 

One of the damsels who was a stranger, and less familiar than the others, 

was unwilling to take off her chemise until the light was extinguished, 

for it must be remembered that it was the general custom to sleep in 

bed quite naked, and the daughter of the duke, whose bedfellow she 

was to be, blew the candle out — 

Roseite tantost la soufla, 
Qu'a s' esponde estoit atachie. 

Blowing out the candle was the ordinary manner of extinguishing it. In 
the " Me'nagier de Paris," or instructions for the management of a gen- 
tleman's household, compiled in the latter half of the fourteenth century, 
the lady of the house is told, after having each night ascertained that 
the house is properly closed and all the fires covered, to see all the ser- 
vants to bed, and to take care that each had a candle in a " flat-bottomed 
candle-stick," at some distance from the bed, " and to teach them pru- 
dently to extinguish their candles before they go into their bed with the 
mouth, or with the hand, and not with their chemise," i.e. they were to 
blow their candle out, or put it out with their fingers, not to extinguish 
it by throwing their shifts upon it— another allusion to the practice of 
sleeping naked.* Extinguishers had not yet come into general use. 
People went to bed with a candle placed in a candlestick of a different 

* *< Et ayez fait adviser par avant, qu'ils aient chascun loing de son lit chandelier a 
platine pour mettre sa chandelle, et les aiez fait introduce sagement de l'estamdre a 
la bouche ou a la main avant qu'ils entrent en leur lit, et non mie a la chemise."— 
Me'nagier de Paris, ii. 71. 



264 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



description from that used at table ; and we learn from a story in the 
" Me'nagier de Paris " that it was customary for the servant or servants 
who had charge of the candles, to accompany them into their bedroom, 
remain with them till they were in bed, and then carry the candles away. 
Candles were, however, usually left in the chamber or bedroom all night • 
and there was frequently a spike, or candlestick, attached to the chim- 




No. 186. — The Cellarer in a Panic. 

ney ; as in the fabliau just quoted, there was, no doubt, a similar spike 
attached to the wood-work of the bed. The stick, whether fixed or 
movable, was made for convenience in placing the candle in the 
chamber, and not for the purpose of carrying it about ; for the latter 
purpose it appears to have been generally taken off the stick, and 
carried in the hand. Our cut No. 186, taken from one of the carved 
stalls of the chapel of Winchester school, represents an individual, per- 
haps the cellarer or steward, who has gone into the cellar with a candle, 
which he carries in this manner, and is there terrified by the appearance 
of hobgoblins. In the fabliau of the " Chevalier a la Corbeille," an old 
duena, employed to watch over her young mistress, being disturbed in 
the night, is obliged to take her candle, and go into the kitchen to 
light it ; from whence we may suppose that it was the custom to keep 
the kitchen fire alight all night. 

An old poem on the troubles of housekeeping, printed by M. Jubinal 
in his "Nouveau Recueil de Contes," enumerates candles and a 
lantern among the necessaries of a household — 

Or faut chandeles et lanterne. 



LAMPS. 



265 




. — Man with 
Lantern. 



A manuscript of the thirteenth century in the French National Library 
(No. 6956) contains an illumination, which has fur- 
nished us with the accompanying cut (No. 187), 
representing a man holding a lantern of the form then 
in use ; and lanterns are not unfrequently mentioned 
in old writers. 

It appears to have been a common custom, at least 
among the better classes of society, to keep a lamp 
in the chamber to give light during the night. In 
one of the fabliaux printed in Meon, a man entering 
the chamber of a knight's lady, finds it lit by a lamp, 
which was usually left burning in it — 

Une lampe avoit en la chambre, 
Par costume ardoir i siaut. 

In the English romance of " Sir Eglamour," several lamps are described 
as burning in a lady's chamber — 

Aftur sopur, as y yow telle, 
He wendyd to chaumbur with Crystyabelle, 
There laumpus were brennyng bryght. 

We may suppose, notwithstanding these words, that a lamp gave but a 
dim light ; and accordingly, we are told in another fabliau that there 
was little light, or, as it is expressed in the original, " none," in a cham- 
ber where nothing but a lamp was burning, — 

En la chambre lumiere n'ot, 
Hors d'un mortier qu'iluec ardoit, 
Point de clarte ne lor rendoit. 

In the following cut (No. 188), taken from an illumination in a manu- 
script of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris 
(No. 6988), a nun, apparently, is arranging her lamp before going 
to bed. The lamp here consists of a little basin of oil, in which, no 
doubt, the wick floated ; but the use of the stand under it is not easily 
explained. 

Lamps were used where a light was wanted in a room for a long 
time, because they lasted longer without requiring snuffing. The lamps 
of the Middle Ages were made usually on the plan of those of the 



266 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Romans, consisting, as in the accompanying example, of a small vessel of 
earthenware or metal, which was filled with oil, and a wick placed in it. 
This lamp was placed on a stand, or was sometimes suspended on a 
beam, or perch, or against the wall. We have an example of this in 
the following cut (No. 188), which explains the term mortier (mortar) 




No. 188. — A Bedroom Chamber Scene. 



of the fabliau ; it was a wick swinging in oil in a basin. Our cut No. 
189, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British 
Museum (MS. Harl., No. 1227), represents a row of lamps of rather 




No. 189. — Mediaeval Lamps. 

curious form, made to be suspended. In our next cut (No. 190), from 
a manuscript of the same date (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), we have lamps of 
a somewhat similar form, made to be carried in the hand. 

Torches were used at greater festivals, and for occasions where it was 
necessary to give light to very large halls full of company. They were 
usually held in the hand by servants, but were sometimes placed against 
the wall in holes made to receive them. Torches were not unfrequently 
used to give light to the chamber also. In one of the stories of the 
" Seven Sages," a man, bringing a person in secret to the king's cham- 
ber, " blewe out the torche," in order to cause perfect darkness (Weber 



TORCHES. 



267 



iii. 63) ; and in the early English romance of " Sir Degrevant" (Weber 
iii. 213), where light is wanted in lady's chamber, it is obtained by 
means of the torches. 




No. 190. — Men carrying Lamps. 

There were other means of giving light, on a still greater scale, which 
I shall describe in a subsequent chapter, when treating of the fifteenth 
century. 



CHAPTER XV. 

TJie Bed and its Furniture. — The Toilette; Bathing. — Chests and Coffers 
in the Chamber. — The Hutch. — Uses of Rings. — Composition of the 
Family. — Freedom of Manners. — Social Sentiments, and Domestic 
Relations. 

IT was now a matter of pride to have the bed furnished with hand- 
some curtains and coverings. Curtains to beds were so common 
that being " under the curtain " was used as an ordinary periphrasis for 
being in bed ; but these curtains appear to have been suspended to the 
ceiling of the chamber, with the bedstead behind them. With regard 
to the bed itself, there was now much more refinement than when it 
was simply stuffed with straw. Beds among the rich were made with 
down {duvet) ; in the " Roman de la Violette " we are told of a bed 
made of bofu — which is understood to mean a kind of stuff. From the 
vocabulary composed by Alexander Neckam early in the thirteenth 
century, we learn that the bed was covered much in the same way as at 
present. First, a " quilte " was spread over the bed ; and on this the 
bolster was placed ; over this was laid a " quilte poynte " or " raye " 
(courlepointe, or counterpane) ; and on this, at the head of the bed, was 
placed the pillow. The sheets were then thrown over it, and the whole 
was covered with a coverlet, the common material of which, according 
to Neckam, was green say, though richer materials, and even valuable 
furs, were used for this purpose. In the "Lai del Desire," we are told of 
a quilt (coille), made in checker-wise-, of pieces of two different sorts of 
rich stuff, which seems to have been considered as something extremely 
magnificent — 



SLEEPING HABITS. 269 



Sur on bon lit s'ert apuiee ; 

La coilte fu a. eschekers, 

De deus pailles ben faiz e chers. 

Among all classes the appearance of the bed seems to have been a 
subject of Considerable pride, no doubt from the circumstance of the 
bedroom being a place for receiving visitors. There were sometimes 
two or more beds in the same room, and visitors slept in the same 
chamber with the host and hostess. Beds were also laid for the occa- 
sion, without bedsteads, sometimes in the hall, at others in the chamber 
beside the ordinary bed, or in some other room. The plots of many 
mediaeval stories turn on these circumstances. People therefore kept 
extra materials for making the beds. In the "Roman du Meunier 
d'Arleux," when a maiden comes as an unexpected visitor, a place is 
chosen for her by the side of the fire, and a soft bed is laid down, with 
very expensive sheets, and a coverlet " warm and furred " — 

Kieute mole, linchex molt chier, 
Et covertoir chaut et forre. 

One custom continued to prevail during the whole of this period, — 
that of sleeping in bed entirely naked. So many allusions to this 
practice occur in the old writers, that it is hardly necessary to say more 
than state the fact. Not unfrequently this custom is still more strongly 
expressed by stating that people went to bed as naked as they were 
born; as in some moral lines in the "Reliquiae Antiquse" (ii. 15), 
against the pride of the ladies, who are told that, however gay may 
be their clothing during the day, they will lie in bed at night as naked 
as they were born. It is true that in some instances in the illuminations 
persons are seen in bed with some kind of clothing on, but this was 
certainly an exception to the rule, and there is generally some particular 
reason for it. Thus, in the "Roman de la Violette" (p. 31), the lady 
Oriant excites the surprise of her duena by going to bed in a chemise, 
and is obliged to explain her reason for so singular a practice, namely, 
her desire to conceal a mark on her body. Our cut No 191, taken 
from the romance of St Graal, in the British Museum (MS. Addit. No. 
10,292, fol. 21, v°), represents a king and queen in bed, both naked. 
The crowns on their heads are a mere conventional method of stating 
their rank : kings and queens were not in the habit of sleeping in bed 



270 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



with their crowns on their heads. In the next cut (No. 192), taken from a 
a manuscript of the romance of the " Quatre Fils d'Aymon," of the latter 
part of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris (No. 




No. 191. — King and Queen in Bed. 

6970), there is still less room left for doubt on the subject. The people 
seem to be sleeping in a public hostelry, where the beds are made in 




No. 192. — Night Scene in a Hostelry. 



recesses not unlike the berths in a modern steamer ; the man on horse- 
back is supposed to be outside, and his arrival has given alarm to a 
man who was in bed, and who is escaping without any kind of clothing. 



WARM BATHING. 



271 



In the English romance of " Sir Isumbras," the castle of Isumbras is 
burnt to the ground in the night, and his lady and three children 
escaped from their beds ; when he hurried to the spot he found them 
without clothing or shelter — 

A dolefulle syghte the knyghte gane see 
Of his wyfe and his childir three, 

That fro the fyre were flede ; 
Alle als nakede als thay were borne 
Stode togedir undir a thorne, 

Braydede owte of thaire bedd. 

Curiously enough, while so little care was taken to cover the body, the 
head was carefully covered at night, not with a nightcap, but with a 
kerchief (convrechief), which was wrapped round it. 

The practice of warm-bathing prevailed very generally in all classes 
of society, and is frequently alluded to in the mediaeval romances and 
stories. For this purpose a large bathing-tub was used, the ordinary 
form of which is represented in the annexed cut (No. 193), taken from 




No. 193. — A Lady Bathing. 

the manuscript of the St Graal, of the thirteenth century, in the British 
Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,292, fol. 266). ' People sometimes bathed 
immediately after rising in the morning; and we find the bath used 
after dinner, and before going to bed. A bath was also often prepared 
for a visitor on his arrival from a journey; and, what seems still more 
singular, in the numerous stories of amorous intrigues, the two lovers 
usually begin their interviews by bathing together. 

Our cut No. 194, from another volume of the manuscript last quoted 




272 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

(MS. Addit. No. 10,293, fol. 266), represents a lady at her toilette. It 

is a subject on which our information at 
this period is not very abundant. The 
round mirror of metal which she is em- 
ploying was the common form during the 
Middle Ages, and was no doubt derived 
from the ancients. The details of the 
ladies' toilette are not often described, but 

No. 194. — Lady at her Toilette. 

the contemporary moralists and satirists 
condemn, in rather general terms, and evidently with more bitterness 
than was called for, the pains taken by the ladies to adorn their persons. 
They are accused of turning their bodies from their natural form by 
artificial means, alluding to the use of stays, which appear to have been 
first employed by the Anglo-Norman ladies in the twelfth century. 
They are further accused of plucking out superfluous hairs from their 
faces and eyebrows, of dyeing their hair, and of painting their faces. 
The Chevalier de la Tour-Landry (chap. 76) tells his daughters that the 
whole intrigue between king David and the wife of Uriah arose out of 
the circumstance of the lady combing her hair at an open window where 
she could be seen from without, and says that it was a punishment for 
the too great attention she gave to the adornment of her head. The 
toilette of the day seems to have been completed at the first rising from 
bed in the morning. There are some picturesque lines in the English 
metrical romance of " Alisaunder," which describe the morning thus : — 

In a moretyde (morrow-tide) hit was ; 

Theo dropes hongyn on the gras ; 

Theo maydenes lokyn in the glas, 

For to tyffen (adorn) heare fas (face). — Weber, i. 169. 

The chamber, as it has been already intimated, was, properly speaking, 
the women's apartment, though it was very accessible to the other sex. 
It was usually the place for private conversation, and we often hear of 
persons entering the chamber for this purpose, and in this case the bed 
seems to have served usually for a seat. Thus, in the romance of 
" Eglamour," when, after supper, Christabelle led the knight into her 
chamber — 



PRIVATE INTERVIEWS. 



73 



That lady was not for to hyde, 
Sche sett hym on hur beddys syde, 

And welcomyd home thet knyght. 

Again, in a fabliau printed by Meon, a woman of a lower grade, wish- 
ing to make a private communication to a man, invites him into her 
chamber, and they sit on the bed to converse — 

En une chambre andui en vont, 
Desor un lit asis se sont. 

And in the fabliau of " Guillaume au Faucon," printed by Barbazan, 
Guillaume, visiting the lady of a knight in her chamber, finds her seated 
on the bed, and he immediately takes a seat by her side to converse 
with her. In the illuminated manuscripts, scenes of this kind occur 




No. 195. — Conversation in the Chamber. 

frequently ; but in the fourteenth century, instead of being seated on 
the bed, the persons thus conversing sit on the bench which ran 
along the side of the bed, and belonged to the bedstead. A scene of 
this kind is represented in our cut No. 195 (taken from a manuscript 
of the romance of " Meliadus," in the British Museum, MS. Addit. No. 
12,228, fol. 312), which is a good representation of a bed of the four- 
teenth century. A lady has introduced a king into her chamber, and 
they are conversing privately, seated on the bench of the bed. In 
some of these illuminations, the persons conversing are seated on the 
bed, with their feet on the bench. 



274 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



The illuminators had not yet learned the art of representing things 
in detail, and they still too often give us mere conventional repre- 
sentations of beds, yet we see enough to convince us that the bedsteads 
were already made much more elaborately than formerly. Besides the 
bench at the side, we find them now with a hutch (huche) or locker at 




No. 196. — Taking Clothes from the Chest. 

the foot, in which the possessor was accustomed to lock up his money 
and other valuables. This hutch at the foot of the bed is often men- 
tioned in the fabliaux and romances. Thus, in the fabliau "Du 
Chevalier a la Robe Vermeille," a man, when he goes to bed, places 
his robe on a hutch at the foot of the bed — 

Sur une huche aus piez du lit 
A cil toute sa robe mise. 

Another, having extorted some money from a priest, immediately puts 
it in the hutch — 

Les deniers a mis en la huche. 

The hutch was indeed one of the most important articles of furniture in 
the mediaeval chamber. All portable objects of intrinsic value or utility 
were kept in boxes, because they were thus ready for moving and taking 
away in case of danger, and because in travelling people carried much 
of their movables of this description about with them. Hence the uses 



TREASURE-CHESTS. 



275 



of the hutch or chest were very numerous and diversified. It was usual 
to keep clothes of eveiy description in a chest, and illustrations of this 
practice are met with not uncommonly in the illuminated manuscripts. 
One of them is given in our cut No. 196, taken from an illumination in 
a manuscript of the fourteenth century, given by Willemin. Jewels, 
plate, personal ornaments of all kinds, 
and all descriptions of " treasure," were 
similarly locked up in chests. In our 
cut No. 197, taken also from a manu- 
script in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 
2 B. vii., of the beginning of the four- 
teenth century), a man appears in the 
act of depositing in a chest fibulae or 
brooches, rings, buttons, and other ob- 
jects, and a large vessel probably of 
silver. Our cut No. 198, from a manu- 
script in the National Library in Paris 
(No. 6956), represents a miser examin- 
ing the money in his hutch, which is here detached from a bed ; but 
in some other illuminations, a hutch of much the same form appears 
attached to the bed foot. In Anglo-Saxon the coffer was called a loc, 
whence our word locker is derived; or a cyste, our chest; or an arc: 
from the Anglo-Normans we derive the words hutch (Jiuche) and coffer 
(coffre). The Anglo-Saxons, as we have shown in a former chapter 
(p. 79), like our forefathers of a later period, kept their treasures in 
lockers or hutches. In the " Legend of St Juliana," an Anglo-Saxon 
poem in the Exeter Book, it is remarked in proof of the richness of a 
chieftain : — 




No. 197. — The Treasure-Chest. 



J)eah ]>e feoh-gestreon 
under hord-locan, 
hyrsta linrim, 
sehte ofer eorJ>an. 



Although he riches 

in his treasure-lockers, 

jewels innumerable, 

possessed upon earth. — Exeter Book, p. 245. 



Among the Anglo-Saxons the lady of the household had the charge 
of the coffers. In one of the laws of Cnut relating to robberies, it is 
declared that " if any man bring a stolen thing home to his cot, and he 
be detected, it is just that the owner have what he went for ; and un- 



276 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



less it has been brought under his wife's key-lockers (cceg-locan), let her 
be clear ; for it is her duty to keep the keys of them, namely, her store- 
house (hord-ern), and her chest (cyste), and her box (tege)." (Cnut's 
Laws, No. 180.) 

Larger sums of money were in the Middle Ages preserved in a 
manner which our early forefathers seem to have learned from the 
Romans, namely, burial underground. In excavating and exploring 
old Roman towns in this island, it is no unusual circumstance to find 
deposits of money, either under the floors of the houses or in the courts. 
We frequently find deposits of mediaeval money, and of money of a 
later period, under similar circumstances, and even the bankers, or 




No. 198. — A Miser and his Hoard. 

money-dealers, of those ancient times, seem to have deposited their 
money in this manner. A very curious history in relation to a deposit 
of this kind is told in a volume which I edited for the Camden Society 
some years ago, the scene of which is laid in Ireland, in the English 
pale.* What we now call banking, and money-lending, had now taken 
a considerable development in the great extension of commercial 
relations ; and William Outlawe was a rich banker and money-lender 
of Kilkenny. He married a lady of property of the neighbourhood, 
named Alice Kyteler. She became a widow in 1302, married Adam 
le Blond of Callan, of another rich family, who died in 13 11, when she 

* A Contemporary Narrative of the Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, pro- 
secuted for sorcery in 1324 by Richard de Ledrede, JBishop of Ossory, edited by 
Thomas Wright, 4to, 1843. 



A BURIED TREASURE. 277 



took to a third husband, Richard de Valle, and before long, on his 
death, she was married a fourth time, to Sir John le Poer, who belonged 
to one of the most powerful families in this part of Ireland. By her 
first husband she had a son, named also William Outlawe, who appears 
to have inherited his father's property, and succeeded him as banker. 
In the year 1302, Adam le Blond and Alice his wife intrusted to the 
keeping of her son, the younger William Outlawe, as banker, the sum of 
three thousand pounds in money, which he, for security, buried in the 
earth within his house, then apparently the usual way of keeping money. 
But the secret had not been kept, and the deposit of so large a sum of 
money had been noised about, at least among the relatives. One night, 
William le Kyteler, then sheriff of Kilkenny, who is supposed to have 
been a kinsman of the Lady Alice, by precept of the seneschal of the 
liberty of Kilkenny, broke into the house vi et armis, to use the words 
of the record, dug up this money, and carried it away, as well as a 
hundred pounds of money belonging to William Outlawe himself, which 
they found in the house. Such an outrage was not likely to pass with- 
out some attempt to obtain redress, but the perpetrators, when proceed- 
ings were taken against them, pleaded that it was treasure trove, having 
been dug out of the earth, and therefore no proceedings could be 
taken against them, but by the king, to whom, in that case, it belonged. 
The money appears not to have been recovered, but the affair appears 
to have been sinking into something like a family feud, which we can 
easily understand in Ireland at that time. It finally took another form, 
and the Lady Alice Kyteler, with her son William Outlawe, and several 
other persons, were accused of sorcery, and proceedings were taken 
against them in the ecclesiastical court by the Bishop of Ossory. 
Among other things, the Lady Alice was accused of procuring the 
deaths of her four husbands by means of sorcery. She is understood 
to have made her escape into England. Such were the inconveniences 
to which bankers were exposed in those turbulent ages. 

But to return to the hutches, or coffers, in which the householder 
was the guardian of his own money; in the old metrical romances, 
when a town is taken and sacked, the plunderers are described as 
hurrying to the chambers, to rifle the chests and coffers, which were 
kept there. Thus, in the romance of the " Mort de Garin," when 



278 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Fromont's town is taken by the followers of the hero of the romance, 
" the Lorrains," we are told, " hastened to destroy the town ; there 
you might see many a chamber broken open, and many a hutch burst 
and torn, where they found robes, and silver, and pure gold " — 

Loheren poignent por le bore desrochier. 
La veissiez mainte chambre brisier, 
Et mainte huche effondrer et percier, 
Et trovent robes, et argent, et or mien 

— Mort de Gavin, p. 168. 

So in the romance of " Garin," of which that just quoted is the sequel, 
on a similar occasion, " there you might see them rob the great halls, 
and break open the chambers, and force the coffers {escrins)" — 

La. veissiez'les grans salles rober ; 
Chambres brisier, et les escrins forcier. 

— Garin le Loherain, torn. i. p. 197. 




No. 199. — Joseph Buying up the Corn. 



Further on in the same romance, the fair Beatrix, addressing her husband, 
the Duke Begues, tells him that he has gold and silver in his coffers — 

Or et argent avez en vos escrins. — lb., torn. ii. p. 218. 

Money was indeed commonly kept in the huche or coffer. In the fabliau 
of " Constant Duhamel," when Constant is threatened by the forester, 
who had detained his oxen on the pretence that they had been found 
trespassing, he tells him that he was ready to redeem them, as he had 
a hundred sols of money in his hutch by his bed — 



TREASURE- CHAMBERS. 



279 



J'ai, en ma huche lez mon lit, 
Cent sols de deniers a vostre oes. 

— Barbazan, iii. 307. 



In the preceding cut No. 199, from a manuscript of the fourteenth 
century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), Joseph is repre- 
sented counting out the money from his huche, to buy up the corn of 
Egypt, during the years of plenty. 

The chests were kept in the chambers, as being the most retired and 
secure part of the house, and, from the terms in which the breaking 
open of the chambers is spoken of in the foregoing extracts, we are led 
to suppose that the chambers themselves were usually locked. The 
ordinary place for the chests or hutches, or, at least, of the principal 
chest, was by the side, or more usually at the foot, of the bed. We 
have "just seen that this was the place in which Constant Duhamel kept 
his huche. Under these circumstances it was very commonly used for 
a seat, and is often introduced as such, both in the literature of the 
Middle Ages, and in the illuminations of the manuscripts. In the 
romance of "Garin" (torn. i. p. 214), 
the king's messenger finds the Count of 
Flanders, Fromont, in a tent, accord- 
ing to one manuscript, seated on a cof- 
fer {sor un coffre oil se sist). So, also, 
in the " Roman de la Violette," p. 25, 
the heroine and her treacherous guest 
are represented as seated upon " a cof- 
fer banded with copper " (sor j. coffre — 
bende de coivre). Our cut No. 200, 
taken from one of the engravings in the great work of Willemin, repre- 
sents a scribe thus seated on a coffer or huche, and engaged apparently 
in writing a letter. Our next cut No. 201, taken from a manuscript of 
the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), re- 
presents a lady and gentleman, seated on apparently a coffer, the former 
of whom is presenting a ring to the other. 

This latter object, the ring, acts also a very frequent and very impor- 
tant part in the social history of the Middle Ages. A ring was often 
given as a token of affection between lovers, as may perhaps be intended 




No. 200. — Sitting on the Huche. 



28o 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



by the subject of our last cut, or between relatives or friends. In the 
romance of " Widukind," torn. ii. p. 20, the queen gives her ring to her 
lover in a secret interview in her tent. So, in the romance of " Horn," 
the Lady Rigmel gave her lover, Horn, a ring as a token. It was often, 
moreover, given not merely as a token of remembrance, but as a means 
of recognition. In the well-known early English romance of "Sir 
Tristram," the mother of the hero, dying in childbirth of him after his 




No. 201. — The Token of the Ring. 

father had been slain, gives a ring to the knight to whose care she 

intrusted the infant, as a token by which his parentage should be known 

when he grew up — 

A ring of riche hewe 

Than hadde that levedi (lady) fre ; 
Sche toke (gave) it Rouhand trewe, 

Hir sone sche bad it be ; 
Mi brother wele it knewe, 

Mi fader yaf it me. 

This ring . leads subsequently to the recognition of Tristram by his 
uncle, King Mark. In the romance of "Ipomydon" (Weber's "Metrical 
Romances," vol. ii. p. 355), the hero similarly receives from his mother a 
ring, which was to be a token of recognition to his illegitimate brother. 
So, in the romance, Horn makes himself known in the sequel to Rigmel, 
by dropping the ring she had given him into the drinking-horn which she 
was serving round at a feast. Rings were often given to messengers as 
credentials, or were used for the same purpose as letters of introduction. 
In the romance of "Floire and Blancefior" (p. 55), the young hero, on 
his way to Babylon, arrives at a bridge, the keeper of which has a 
brother in the great city, to whose hospitality he wishes to recommend 



CHARMED RINGS. 



Floire, and for that purpose he gives him his ring. " Take this ring 
to him," he says, " and tell him from me to receive you in his best 
manner." The message was attended with complete success. In our 
cut No. 202, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the 
British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), the messenger arrives with the 
letter of which he is the bearer, and at the same time exhibits a ring in 
the place of credentials. 

There was another circumstance which gave value and importance 
to rings in the Middle Ages. Not only might rings be charmed by the 
power of the magician, but it was an article of general belief that the 
engraved stones of the ancients, which were found commonly enough on 
old sites, and even the precious stones in general, without any engrav- 




No. 202. — The Delivery of the Ring. 

ing, possessed extraordinary virtues, the benefit of which was imparted 
to those who carried them on their persons. In the romance of 
"Melusine" (p. 357), the heroine, when about to leave the house of 
her husband, gives him two rings, and says, " My sweet love, you see 
here two rings of gold, which have both the same virtue ; and know 
well for truth, that so long as you possess them, or one of them, you 
shall never be overcome in pleading or in battle, if your cause be 
rightful ; and neither you nor others who may possess them, shall ever 
die by any weapons." In a story among the collection of the " Gesta 
Romanorum," edited by Sir Frederick Madden for the Roxburghe Club 
(p. 150),' a father is made, on his death-bed, to give to his son a ring, 
" the virtue of which^was, that whosoever should bear it upon him, should 
have the love of all men." The ring given by the Princess Rigmel to 



282 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Horn, possessed virtues of an equally remarkable description — " Who- 
ever bore it upon him could not perish ; he need not fear to die either 
in fire or water, or in field of battle, or in the contention of the tourna- 
ment." So, in the romance of " Floire and Blanceftor" (p. 42), the 
queen gives her son a ring which would protect him against all danger, 
and assure to him the eventual attainment of every object of his wishes. 
Nor was the ring of Sir Perceval of Galles (Thornton Romances, p. 71) 
at all less remarkable in its properties, of which the rhymer says — 

Siche a vertue es in the stane, 
In alle this werlde wote I nane 

Siche stone in a rynge ; 
A mane that had it in were (war) 
One his body for to bere, 
There scholde no dyntys (blows) hym dere (injure), 

Ne to dethe brynge. 

The consideration of the house and its parts and furniture, and of the 
outward forms of domestic life, leads us naturally to that of the consti- 
tution of the family. It was the chief pride of the aristocratic class to 
live very extravagantly, and to support a great household, with an 
immense number of personal attendants of different classes. In the 
first place the old system of fostering, which was kept up to a compara- 
tively late period, added to the number of the lord's or knight's family. 
As might was literally right in the Middle Ages, each man of worth 
sought to strengthen himself by the alliances which were formed by 
finding powerful foster-fathers for his sons, and the personal attachment 
and fidelity between the chief of the family and his foster-child was 
often greater even than that between the father and his own son. In 
addition to the foster-children, men of good family sent their sons to 
take an honourable kind of service in the families of men of higher 
rank or greater wealth, where the manners and accomplishments of 
gentlemen were to be learned in greater perfection than at home ; and 
the younger sons of great families sought similar service with a view to 
their advancement in the world. These two classes were the young 
squires, who served at table, and performed a great number of what we 
should now call menial offices to the lord and ladies of the household, 
in all the amusements and recreations of which they took part, and at 
the same time were instructed in gentlemanly manners and exercises — 



FOSTER CHILDREN. 283 



it was a sort of apprenticeship introductory to knighthood. In the 
same manner the knightly families sent their daughters to serve under 
the ladies of the greater or lesser feudal chieftains, and they formed that 
class who, in the French romances and fabliaux, are called the cham- 
brieres, or chamber attendants, and in the English texts, simply the 
maidens, of the establishment. The ladies of rank prided themselves 
upon having a very great number of these chambrieres, or maidens, for 
they were not only a means of ostentation, but they were profitable, 
inasmuch as besides attending on the personal wants of their mistresses, 
they were constantly employed in spinning, weaving, and the various 
processes of producing cloth, in millinery and dress-making, in em- 
broidery, and in a great number of similar labours, which were not only 
required for furnishing the large number of persons who depended upon 
their lord for their liveries, &c, but which were sometimes sold to 
obtain money, which was always a scarce thing in the country. The 
beauty of the fiucettes, as they are often termed in the French text, or 
maidens, is also spoken of as a subject of pride. In a metrical story 
printed by Meon (ii. 38), a great lady, receiving a female stranger into 
her household, became so much attached to her, " that she made more 
of her than of all her maidens, of whom," it is added, " there were hand- 
some ones in her chambers " — 

De li la dame fet grant feste, 
Plus que de totes ses puceles, 
Dont en ses chambres a de beles. 

And so, in the romance of " Blonde of Oxford " (p. 50), when the 
countess went with her maidens to visit John, the remark is made that 
among them there were plenty of beauties — 

Et la contesse et ses puceles, 
Dont ele avoit asses de beles. 

The usual age for sending a boy to foster appears to have been seven 
years. That was the age at which Fulke Fitz-Warine was sent to Joce 
de Dynan in Ludlow Castle. " The lady," the narrative tells us, 
" became with child ; when she was delivered, at the time ordained by 
God, they called the child Fulke. And when the child was seven years 
old, they sent him to Joce de Dynan to teach and nourish ; for Joce 



284 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

was a knight of good accomplishment. Joce received him with great 
honour and great affection, and educated him in his chambers with his 
own children." Fulke the younger, in the next generation, was taken 
as his foster-child by the king (Henry II.), and was nourished and 
educated with the young princes, of whom John, in the sequel, proved 
a bad foster-brother. The great barons sought to form alliances of this 
kind with the king, as well as with his great ministers and other men of 
power. In the romance of " Garin le Loherain " (vol. i. p. 62), King 
Pepin gives the two orphan sons of Hervis of Metz, Garin and Begon, 
as foster-children to the Count Hardres, and they thus become severally 
the foster-brothers, or, as they are termed in the old French, compains 
(companions), of his two sons, Begon being the foster-brother of 
Guillaume of Montclin, and Garin of Fromont. Although they belong 
to rival families, and are each other's enemies through the turbulent 
scenes which form the subject of the story, the sentiment of the relation- 
ship by fostering often shows itself. This yearning after something 
beyond mere ordinary friendship seems to have been often felt in the 
Middle Ages, and led to various characteristic practices, among which 
one of the most remarkable was that of sworn brotherhood. Two men 
— they are generally knights — who felt a sufficiently strong sentiment 
towards each other, engaged, under the most solemn oaths, in a bond 
of fraternity for life, implying a constant and faithful friendship to each 
other. This practice enters largely into the plot of several of the 
mediaeval romances, as in that of " Amis and Amiloun," and in the 
curious English metrical romance of " King Athelston," printed in the 
" Reliquias Antiquse." The desire for this true friendship was not 
unnaturally increased by the general prevalence of treacherous false- 
hood and hateful feuds. There is a beautiful passage in the romance 
of " Garin," just quoted, which illustrates this sentiment, while it fur- 
nishes an interesting picture of domestic life. " One day," we are told, 
" Begues was in his castle of Belin, and beside him sat the beautiful 
Beatris. The duke kissed her both on the mouth and on the cheeks, 
and very sweetly the duchess smiled. In the middle of the hall she 
saw her two sons, the eldest of whom was Garin, and the youngest was 
named Hernaudin ; their ages were respectively twelve years, and ten. 
Along with them were six damoisels (gentlemen's sons) of worth, and 



A DEFINITION OF WEALTH. 285 

they were running and leaping together, and playing, and laughing, and 
making game. The duke looked at them, and began to sigh ; which 
was observed by the lady, who questioned him — ' Ah ! rich duke ! why 
have you sorrowful thoughts ? You have gold and silver in your coffers, 
falcons in plenty on your perches, and rich cloths, buildings, and mules, 
and palfreys, and baggage-horses ; and you have crushed all your 
enemies. You have no neighbour within six days' journey powerful 
enough to refuse to come to your service if you send for him.' ' Lady/ 
said the duke, ' what you say is true ; but in one thing you have made 
a great oversight. Wealth consists neither in rich cloths, nor in money, 
nor in buildings, nor in horses ; but it is made of kinsmen and friends ; 
the heart of one man is worth all the gold in a country.' " 

Dist li dus, " Dame, verites avez dit ; 
Mais d'une chose i avez moult mespris. 
N'est pas richoise ne de vair ne de gris, 
Ne de deniers, de murs, ne de roncins, 
Mais est richoise de parens et d'amins ; 
Li cuers d'un homme vaut tout l'or d'un pais." 

, — Garin le Loherain, ii. 218. 

The incident of the younger, or even at times the elder, sons of 
feudal lords or landholders going to seek service is the groundwork of 
the romance of " Blonde of Oxford," and of the story of " Courtois 
d' Arras," printed by Meon in his collection of fabliaux and stories. 
The latter tale is a mediaeval version of the scriptural story of the 
Prodigal Son. Youths of good family easily found service in this 
manner, and the service itself was not considered dishonourable, be- 
cause lords and gentlemen admitted nobody to immediate attendance 
on their persons but sons of gentlemen — persons of as good blood as 
themselves. To be a good servant was a gentlemanly accomplishment, 
and the payment these gentlemanly servants received consisted ordin- 
arily in their clothing and gifts of various kinds, rarely in money. I 
have already hinted that the intercourse between the male and female 
portions of the household was on a footing of familiarity and freedom, 
and at the same time on a tone of gallantry which could hardly produce 
a high degree of morality, but the details on this subject, though very 
abundant, are in great part of a description which cannot here be 
entered upon. This intercourse extended to what we should now call 



2 86 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

the privacy of the bed-chamber. It was usual, indeed, for the ladies to 
receive visits from the gentlemen, tete-ti-tete, in their chamber. In the 
fabliau of "Guillaume au Faucon," printed in Barbazan, the young 
" damoisel," as the noble youth was usually termed, having fallen in 
love with the beautiful wife of the lord in whose service he was, took 
an opportunity of visiting her in her chamber, when he knew that all 
her maidens were employed in another part of the building. Without 
knocking, he opened the door gently, and found the lady sitting alone 
on her bed. The lady saluted him with " a sweet smile," and told him 
to come in and sit on the bed by her side, and there " he laughed, and 
talked, and played with her, and the lady did the same." 

Rit et parole et joe a. li, 
Et la dame tot autresi. 

In the midst of these familiarities, Guillaume made his declaration of 
love, and was rejected, but his pursuit was ultimately successful. In 
another fabliau of the thirteenth century, that of " Gautier d'Aupais," it 
is the daughter of his lord and lady with whom the young " damoisel " 
falls in love, and he takes the opportunity one morning, while the two 
latter are at church, to pay a visit to the young lady in her chamber. 
Although in bed on account of illness — and it has been already stated 
how people went to bed without any clothing — the lady is not surprised 
by Gautier's visit, but invites him to sit on her bed, and tell her some- 
thing to amuse her, and he finds the opportunity of making his love 
with more success than the hero of the other tale. In the same manner, 
the ladies are continually described as visiting the gentlemen in their 
chambers, both by day and by night. In "Blonde of Oxford," a 
fashionable romance composed for the entertainment of the best society, 
Blonde thus leaves her bed, throwing only a mantle over her person, to 
pass whole nights with Jean of Dammartin, and their interviews are 
described in language which would not be allowed in any respectable 
book at the present day. The Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, in his 
moral instructions to his daughters, tells them a story to illustrate the ill 
results of a quarrelsome temper. There was a young lady, he says, the 
daughter of " a very gentle knight," who quarrelled at the game of tables 
with a gentleman who had no better temper than herself, and who, pro- 



LICENTIOUSNESS OF MEDIAEVAL SOCIETY. 287 

voked by the irritating language she used towards him, told her that she 
was known to be in the habit of going by night into the men's chambers, 
and kissing and embracing them in their beds without candle ; and this 
is told, not in reproof of conduct which was unusually bad, but to show 
that people who speak ill of others run the risk of having their own fail- 
ings exposed. Examples of this intercourse of persons of different sexes 
in their chambers, and of the results which frequently followed, as told in 
the mediaeval romances and stories, might be multiplied to almost any 
extent. 

In these stories, the ladies in general show no great degree of deli- 
cacy, but on the contrary, they are commonly very forward. It is usual 
with them to fall in love with the other sex, and, so far from attempting 
to conceal their passion, they often become suitors, and make their 
advances with more warmth and less delicacy than is shown by the 
gentlemen in a similar position. Not only are their manners dissolute, 
but their language and conversation are loose beyond anything that those 
who have not read these interesting records of mediaeval life can easily 
conceive, which was a common failing with both sexes. The author of 
the " Me'nagier de Paris " (ii. 60), in recommending to his daughters 
some degree of modesty on this point, makes use of words which his 
modern editor, although printing a text in obsolete language, thought 
it advisable to suppress. It might be argued that the use of such 
language is evidence rather of the coarseness than of the immorality of 
the age, but unfortunately, the latter interpretation is supported by the 
whole tenor of contemporary literature and anecdote, which leaves no 
doubt that mediaeval society was profoundly immoral and licentious. 

On the other hand, the gallantry and refinement of feeling which the 
gentleman is made to show towards the other sex, is but a conventional 
politeness ; for the ladies are too often treated with great brutality. Men 
beating their wives, and even women with whom they quarrel who are 
not their wives, is a common incident in the tales and romances. The 
Chevalier de laTour-Landry tells his daughters the story of a woman who 
was in the habit of contradicting her husband in public, and replying to 
him ungraciously, for which, after the husband had expostulated in vain, 
he one day raised his fist and knocked her down, and kicked her in the 
face while she was down, and broke her nose. " And so," says the 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



knightly instructor, " she was disfigured for life, and thus, through her 
ill behavour and bad temper, she had her nose spoiled, which was a great 
misfortune to her. It would have been better for her to be silent and 
submissive, for it is only right that words of authority should belong to 
her lord, and the wife's honour requires that she should listen in peace 
and obedience." The good "chevalier" makes no remark on the 
husband's brutality, as though it were by no means an unusual occur- 
rence. Other, and stronger, examples of this brutality of the one sex 
towards the other, will be found in the early fabliaux. 

A trouvere of the thirteenth century, named Robert de Blois, com- 
piled a code of instructions in good manners for young ladies in French 
verse, under the title of the "Chastisement des Dames," which is printed 
by Barbazan, and forms a curious illustration of feudal domestic man- 
ners. It was unbecoming in a lady, according to Robert de Blois, to 
talk too much ; she ought especially to refrain from boasting of the 
attentions paid to her by the other sex; and she was recommended not 
to show too much freedom in her games and amusements, lest the men 
should be encouraged to libertinism. In going to church, she was not 
to " trot or run," but to walk seriously, not going in advance of her 
company, and looking straight before her, and not to this side or the 
other, but to salute " debonairely " all persons she met. She is 
recommended not to let men put their hands into her breasts, or kiss 
her on the mouth, as it might lead to greater familiarities. She was 
not to look at a man too much, unless he were her acknowledged lover; 
and when she had a lover, she was not to boast or talk too much of him. 
She was not to expose her body uncovered out of vanity, as her breast, 
or her legs, or her sides, nor to undress in the presence of men. She 
was not to be too ready in accepting presents from the other sex. The 
ladies are particularly warned against scolding and disputing, against 
swearing, against eating and drinking too freely at table, and against 
getting drunk, the latter being a practice from which much mischief 
might arise. A lady was not to cover her face when she went in 
public, as a handsome face was made to be seen, and it was not good 
manners to remain with the face covered before a gentleman of rank. 
An exception, however, is made in the case of ugly or deformed faces, 
which might be covered. There was another exception to the counsel 



RULES OF ETIQUETTE FOR LADIES. 



just mentioned. " A lady who is pale-faced, or has not a good smell, 
ought to breakfast early in the morning ; for good wine gives a very 
good colour; and she who eats and drinks well must heighten her 
colour." One who has bad breath is recommended to eat aniseed, 
fennel, and cumin to her breakfast, and to avoid breathing in people's 
faces. A lady is to be very attentive to her behaviour in church, rules 
for which are given. If she could sing, she was to do so when asked, 
and not require too much pressing. Ladies are further recommended 
to keep their hands clean, to cut their nails often, and not to suffer 
them to grow beyond the finger, or to harbour dirt. In passing other 
people's houses, ladies were not to look into them ; " for a person often 
does things privately in his house, which he would not wish to be seen, 
if any .one should come before his door." For this reason, too, when 
a lady went into another person's house, she is recommended to cough 
at the entrance, or to speak out loud, so that the inmates might not 
be taken by surprise. The directions for a lady's behaviour at table 
are very particular. " In eating, you must avoid much laughing or 
talking. If you eat with another (i.e. in the same plate, or of the same 
mess), turn the nicest bits to him, and do not go picking out the finest 
and largest for yourself, which is not courteous. Moreover, no one 
should eat greedily a choice bit which is too large or too hot, for fear 
of choking or burning herself. .... Each time you drink, wipe your 
mouth well, that no grease may go into the wine, which is very un- 
pleasant to the person who drinks after you. But when you wipe your 
mouth for drinking, do not wipe your eyes or nose with the table-cloth, 
and avoid spilling from your mouth, or greasing your hands too much." 
The lady is further, and particularly, recommended not to utter falsehoods. 
The remainder of the poem consists of directions in making love and 
receiving the addresses of suitors. The " Book " of the Chevalier de 
la Tour-Landry contains instructions for young ladies, in substance 
very much like these, but illustrated by stories and examples. 

The chamber-maidens also went abroad, like the young sons of 
gentlemen ; .but female servants who came as strangers appear not in 
general to have been well regarded, and they probably were, or were 
considered as, a lower class. The circumstance of their having left the 
country where they were known, was looked upon as prima facie evi- 



290 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

dence that their conduct had brought them into discredit there. The 
author of the " Menagier de Paris " advises his daughter never to take 
any such chambrieres, without having first sent to make strict inquiries 
about them in the parts from whence they came. This same early 
writer on domestic economy divides the servants, who, in a large 
household, were very numerous, into three classes : those who were 
employed on a sudden, and only for a certain work, with regard to 
whom the principal caution given is to bargain with them for the price 
of their labour before they begin ; those who were employed for a 
certain time in a particular description of work, as tailors, shoemakers, 
butchers, and others, who always came to work in the house on materials 
belonging to the master of the house, or harvest-men, &c, in the 
country ; and domestic servants who were hired by the year. These 
latter were expected to pay an absolutely passive obedience to the lord 
and lady of the household, and to those set in authority by them. 
The lady of the house had the especial charge of the female servants, 
and the " Menagier " contains rather minute directions as to her house- 
keeping duties. She was to require of the maid-servants, " that early 
in the morning the entrance to your hostel, that is, the hall, and the 
other places by which people enter and stop in the hostel to converse, 
be swept and made clean, and that the footstools and covers of the 
benches and forms be dusted and shaken, and after this that the other 
chambers be in like manner cleaned and arranged for the day." They 
were next to attend to and feed all the " chamber animals," such as pet 
dogs, cage birds, &c. The next thing to be done was to portion out to 
each servant her or his work for the day. At midday the servants were 
to have their first meal, when they were to be fed plentifully, but "only 
of one meat, and not of several, or of any delicacies ; and give them 
only one kind of drink, nourishing but not heady, whether wine or 
other ; and admonish them to eat heartily, and to drink well and plen- 
tifully, for it is right that they should eat all at once, without sitting too 
long, and at one breath, without reposing on their meal, or halting, or 
leaning with their elbows on the table ; and as soon as they begin to 
talk, or to rest on their elbows, make them rise, and remove the table." 
After their "second labour," and on feast-days, the servants were to 
have another, apparently a lighter, repast, and lastly, in the evening 



FEMALE MEDICAL SKILL. 291 



(au vespre), they were to have another abundant meal, like their dinner, 
and then, " if the season required it," they were to be " warmed and 
made comfortable." The lady of the house was then, by herself or a 
deputy on whom she could depend, to see that the house was closed, 
and to take charge of the keys, that nobody could go out or come in ; 
and then to have all the fires carefully " covered," and send all the 
servants to bed, taking care that they put out their candles properly, to 
prevent the risk of fire. In the English poem of the " Seven Sages," 
printed by Weber, the Emperor is described as going to his chamber, 
after the time of locking windows and gates — 

Whan men leke windowe and gate, 

Themparour com to chambre late. — Weber, iii, 60. 

And it appears from a tale in the same collection, that the doors and 
windows were unlocked at daybreak — 

Tho {when) the day dawen gan, 

Awai stal the yonge man ; 

Men unlek dore and windowe. — Ibid., p. 87. 

There was another duty performed by the ladies in the mediaeval 
household, which was a very important one in an age of turbulence, and 
must not be overlooked — they were both nurses and doctors. Medical 
men were not then at hand to be consulted, and the sick or wounded 
man was handed over to the care of the mistress of the house and her 
maidens. The readers of Chaucer will remember the medicinal know- 
ledge displayed by Dame Pertelot in the " Nonnes-Preste's Tale." 
Medicinal herbs were grown in every garden, and were dried or made 
into decoctions, and kept for use. In the early romances we often 
meet with ladies who possessed plants and other objects which pos- 
sessed the power of miraculous cures, and which they had obtained in 
some mysterious manner. Thus, in the Carlovingian romance of 
" Gaufrey," when Robastre was so dangerously wounded that there 
remained no hope of his life, the good wife of the traitor Grifon under- 
took to cure him. "And she went to a coffer and opened it, and took 
out of it a herb which has so great virtue that whoever takes it will be 
relieved from all harm. She pounded and mixed it in a mortar, and 
then came to Robastre and gave it him. It had no sooner passed his 



292 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

throat than he was as sound as an apple " (" Gaufrey," p. 119). So in 
" Fierabras " (p. 67), the Saracen Princess Floripas had in her chamber 
the powerful " mandeglore " (mandrake), which she applied to the 
wounds of Oliver, and they were instantly healed. In the " Roman de 
la Violette " (p. 104), when Gerart, desperately wounded, is carried 
into the castle, the maiden who was lady of it took him into a chamber, 
and there took off his armour, and undressed him, and put him to bed. 
They examined all his wounds, and applied to them ointments of great 
efficacy, and under this treatment he soon recovered. In the English 
romance of "Amis and Amiloun," when Sir Amiloun is discovered 
struck with leprosy, the wife of his friend Amis takes him into her 
chamber, strips him of all his clothing, bathes him herself, and then 
puts him to bed — 

Into hir chaumber she can him lede, 

Aiid kest of al his pover wede {poor clothes), 

And bathed his bodi al bare ; 
And to a bedde swithe (quickly) him brought, 
With clothes riche and wele ywrought ; 
Ful blithe of him thai ware. — Weber, ii. 459. 

To the knowledge of medicines was too often added another knowledge, 
that of poisons^ — a science which was carried to a great degree of per- 
fection in the Middle Ages, and of which there were regular professors. 
The practice of poisoning was, indeed, employed to a frightful extent, 
and it appears, from a variety of evidence, that women were commonly 
agents in it. 

A great part of the foregoing remarks apply exclusively to the aristo- 
cratic portion of society, which included all those who had the right to 
become knights. Through the whole extent of this class of society 
one blood was believed to run, which was distinguished from that of all 
other classes by the title of " gentle blood." The pride of gentle blood, 
which was one of the distinguishing characteristics of feudalism, was very 
great in the Middle Ages. It was believed that the mark of this blood 
could never disappear ; and many of the mediaeval stories turn upon the 
circumstance of a child of gentle blood having been stolen or abandoned 
in its earlier infancy, and bred up, without any knowledge of its origin, 
as a peasant among peasants, or as a burgher among burghers, but dis- 
playing, as it grew towards manhood, by its conduct, the unmistakable 



UPPER AND MIDDLE CLASSES. 293 

proofs of its gentle origin, in spite of education and example. The 
burgher class — the merchant or tradesman, or the manufacturer — appear 
always as money-getting and money-saving people, and individuals often 
became very rich. This circumstance became a temptation, on the one 
hand, to the aristocrat, whose tendency was usually, through his prodi- 
gality, to become poor, and, on the other, to the rich man of no blood, 
who sought to buy aristocratic alliances by his wealth; and intermarriages 
between the two classes were not very unfrequent. In most cases, at 
least in the romances and stories, it was an aristocratic young lady who 
became united with a wealthy merchant, and it was usually a stroke of 
selfish policy on the part of the lady's father. In the fabliau of the 
"Vilain Mire" (Barbazan, ii. 1), — the origin of Moliere's "Medecin 
malgre lui," — and in one or two other old stories, the aristocratic young 
lady is married to an agriculturist. Marriages of this description are 
represented as never being happy ; the husband has no sympathy for 
his wife's gentility, and, according to the code of " chivalry," the lady 
was perfectly justified in being unfaithful to her husband as often as she 
liked, especially if she sinned with men who were superior to him in 
blood. 

It was common for the burgher class to ape gentility, even among 
people of a lower order ; for the great merchant was often superior in 
education and in intelligence, as he was in wealth, to the great majority 
of the aristocratic class. In Chaucer, even the wife of the miller 
aspired to the aristocratic title of madame — 

Ther durste no wight clepe [call) hir but madame. — Cant. Tales, 1. 3954. 

And in speaking of the wives of various burghers who joined in the 
pilgrimage, the poet remarks — 

It is right fair for to be clept [called) madame. — Ibid., 1. 378. 

The burghers also cherished a number of servants and followers in their 
household, or mesnie. In the fabliau of "La Borgoise d'Orliens," the 
mesnie of the burgher, who is not represented as a person of wealth or 
distinction, consists of two nephews, a lad who carried water, three 
chamber-maidens, a niece, two pautoniers, and a ribald, and these were 
all harboured in the hall. The pautonier was only another name for 



294 " THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the ribald, or perhaps it was a sub-class or division of the infamous 
class who lived practically upon the society of the Middle Ages. Even 
the ordinary agriculturist had his mesnie. 

What I have said of the great dissoluteness and immorality of the 
aristocratic class applies more especially to the households of the greater 
barons, though the same spirit must have spread itself far through the 
whole class. The aristocratic class was itself divided into two classes, 
or rather two ranks,' — the great barons, and the knights and lesser 
landholders, and the division between these two classes became wider, 
and the latter more absolutely independent, as the power of feudalism 
declined. These latter were the origin of that class which in more 
modern times has been known by the title of the old country gentleman. 
As far as we can judge from what we know of them, I am led to think 
that this class was the most truly dignified, and in general the most 
moral portion of mediaeval society. There is abundant evidence that 
the tone of morality in the burgher and agricultural classes was not 
high ; and the whole tenor of mediaeval popular and historical literature 
can leave no doubt on our minds that in the Middle Ages the clergy 
were the great corruptors of domestic virtue among both these classes. 
The character of the women, as described in the old satirists and story- 
tellers, as well as in records of a still more strictly truthful character, 
was very low, and, in the towns especially, they are described as spend- 
ing much of their time in the taverns, drinking and gossiping. Of 
course there were everywhere — and, it is to be trusted, not a few — 
bright exceptions to this general character. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Occupations out of Doors. — The Pleasure-Garden. — The Love of Flowers, 
and the Fashion of making Garlands. — Formalities of the Promenade. 
— Gardening in the Middle Ages. 

HUMBOLDT, in his "Cosmos,?' has dwelt on the taste for the 
beauties of nature which has prevailed among various peoples, 
and at different periods of the world's history, but he appears to me to 
have by no means appreciated or done justice to the force of this senti- 
ment among our forefathers in the Middle Ages, and, perhaps I may say, 
especially in England. In our ancient popular poetry the mention of 
the season of the year at which an event happens generally draws 
from the poet some allusion to the charms of nature peculiar to it, to 
the sweetness of the flowers, the richness of the fruit, or the harmony 
of the song of birds. In some of the early romances, each new division 
of the poem is introduced by an allusion of this kind. Thus, at the 
opening of what the editor calls the first chapter of the second part of 
the romance of " Richard Coeur-de-Lion," the poet tells us how it — 

Merye is in the tyme of May, 

Whenne foulis synge in her lay ; 

Floures on appyl-trees and perye {pear-tree) ; 

Smale foules synge merye. 

Ladyes strowe here boures {chambers) 

"With rede roses and lylye flowres ; 

Gret joye is in frith {grove) and lake. — Weber, ii. 149. 

Such interruptions of the narrative are frequent in the long romance of 
" Alexander " (Alexander the Great), and are always expressive. Thus, 
on one occasion the poet tells us, abruptly enough, how — 

Whan corn ripeth in every steode {place), 

Mury {pleasant) it is in feld and hyde {meadow). — Ibid., i. 24. 



296 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



And again, introduced equally abruptly, we are informed — 

In tyme of hervest mery it is ynough ; 
Peres and apples hongeth on bough. 
The hay-ward bloweth mery his home ; 
In every che {every) felde ripe is corne ; 
The grapes hongen on the vyne ; 
- Swete is trewe love and fyne. — Weber, p. 238. 

When, indeed, we consider the confined and dark character of most 
of the apartments of the feudal dwelling^ we cannot be surprised if our 
mediaeval forefathers loved the recreations which brought them into 
the open air. Castles and country mansions had always their gardens 
and pleasure-grounds, which were much frequented by all the different 
branches of the household. The readers of Chaucer will remember the 
description of the " noble " knight January— 

Amonges other of his honest thinges, 
He had a gardyn walled al with stoon, 
So fair a gardyn wot I nowher noon. 

It is implied, at least, that this garden was extensive, and — 

This noble knight, this January the olde, 

Such deynte hath in it to walk and playe, 

That he wold no wight suffre bere the keye, 

Save he himself.— Chaucer, " The Marchaunde 's Tale." 

So, in the curious popular collection of mediaeval stories, entitled the 
" Seven Sages," we are told of a rich burgess who 

Hadde, bihinden his paleys, 

A fair gardin of nobleys 

Ful of appel- trees, and als (also) of pirie (pear-trees) ; 

Foules songe therinne murie. 

Amideward that gardyn fre, 

So wax (grew) a pinnote-tre, 

That hadde fair bowes and frut ; 

Therunder was al his dedut (pleasure). 

He made therunder a grene bench, 

And drank therunder many a sschench (cupful). 

— Weber, iii. 23. 

And, again, in the same collection of stories, a prudent mother, counsel- 
ling her daughter, tells her — 

Daughter, thi loverd (lord) hath a gardin, 
A wel fair ympe (young tree) is tharin ; 



PLEASURE-GARDENS. 297 



A fair harbeth {arbour) hit overspredeth, 

Alle his solas therinne he ledeth. — Weber, iii. 69. 

In Chaucer's " Frankeleyne's Tale," when the lady Dorigen was in want 
of amusement to make her forget the absence of her husband, her friends, 
finding that the sea-shore was not sufficiently gay — 

Schope hem for to pleien somwhere elles, 

They leden hire by rivers and by welles, 

And eke in other places delitables ; 

They dauncen, and they pley at dies and tables. 

So on a day, right in the morvve tide, 

Unto a gardeyn that was ther beside, 

In which that they had made her ordinance 

Of vitaile, and of other purveance, 

They gon and plaie hem al the longe day : 

And this was on the sixte morwe of May, 

Which May had painted with his softe schoures 

This gardeyn ful of leves and of floures : 

And craft of mannes hond so curiously 

Arrayed had this gardeyn of suche pris, 

As if it were the verray paradis. 

And after dinner gan thay to daunce 
And singe also ; sauf Dorigen alone. 

An important incident in the story here occurs, after which- — 

Tho {then) come hir other frendes many on, 
And in the alleyes romed up and down, 
And nothing wist of this conclusioun, 
But sodeynly began to revel newe, 
Til that the brighte sonne had lost his hewe. 

It would be easy to multiply such descriptions as the foregoing, but 
we will only refer to the well-known one at the commencement of the 
"Romance of the Rose," where the carolling is described with more 
minuteness than usual. There were employed minstrels and "jogelours," 
and apparently even tumblers, which are thus described in Chaucer's 
English version : — 

Tho {then) myghtist thou karoles sene, 
And folk daunce and mery bene, 
And made many a faire toumyng 
Upon the grene gras springyng. 
There myghtist thou se these flowtours, 
Mynstrales and eke jogelours, 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



That wel to synge dide her peyne, 

Somme songe songes of Loreyne ; 

For in Loreyn her notes bee 

Fulle swetter than in this contre. 

There was many a tymbester, 

And saillouris {jumpers or tumblers), that I dar wel sweie 

Couthe (knew) her craft ful parfitly, 

The tymbris up ful sotilly 

They caste and hente fulle ofte 

Upon a fynger faire and softe, 

That they ne failide never mo. 

Ful fetys damyseles two, 

Ryght yonge, and fulle of semelyhede, 

In kirtles and noon other wede, 

And faire tressed every tresse, 

Hadde Myrthe doon for his noblesse 

Amydde the karole for to daunce. 

But herof lieth no remembraunce 

How that they daunced queyntly, 

That oon wolde come alle piyvyly 

Agayn that other, and whan they were 

Togidre almost, they threwe yfere (in company) 

Her^mouthis so, that thorough her play 

It semed as they kiste alway. 

To dauncen welle koude they the gise, 

What shulde I more to you devyse? 

These lines show us that our forefathers in the Middle Ages had their 
dancing girls, just as they had and still have them in the East ; it was 
one trait of the mixture of Oriental manners with those of Europe which 
had taken place since the Crusades. 

In these extracts, indeed, we have allusions to the practices of dancing 
and singing, of playing at chess and tables, of drinking, and even of 
dining, in the gardens. Our engraving No. 203, taken from the romance 
of "Alexander," in the Bodleian Library, represents a garden scene, in 
which two royal personages are playing at chess. Dancing in the open 
air was a very common recreation, and is not unfrequently alluded to. 
In the Roman de Geste known by the title of "La Mort de Garin," 
a large dinner- party is given in a garden — 

Les napes metent pardeanx un jardin. — Mort de Garin, p. 28. 
And, in the " Roman de Berte " (p. 4), Charles Martel is represented as 
dining similarly in the garden, at the midsummer season, when the rose 
was in blossom — 

Entour le saint Jehan, que la rose est fleurie. 



FATE OF A CROSS-GRAINED WIFE. 



299 



There is an early Latin story of a man who had a cross-grained wife. 
One day he invited some friends to dinner, and set out his table in his 
garden, by the side of a river {fecit poni mensam in horio suo profie aqucwi). 
The lady seated herself by the water-side, at a little distance from the 
table, and cast a very forbidding look upon her husband's guests ; upon 
which he said to her, " Show a pleasant countenance to our guests, and 
come nearer the table ; " but she only moved farther off, and nearer the 




No. 203. — A Mediaeval Garden-Scene. 

brink of the river, with her back turned to the water. He repeated his 
invitation in a more angry tone, in reply to which, to show her ill-humour, 
she drew farther back, with a quick movement of ill-temper, through 
which, forgetting the nearness of the river, she fell into it, and was 
drowned. The husband, pretending great grief, sent for a boat, and 
proceeded up the stream in search of her body. This excited some 
surprise among his neighbours, who suggested to him that he should go 



300 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

down the stream, and not up. "Ah ! " said he, " you did not know my 
wife — she did everything in contradiction, and I firmly believe that her 
body has floated against the current, and not with it." 

Even among the aristocratic class the garden was often the place for 
giving audience and receiving friends. In the romance of " Garin le 
Loherain," a messenger sent to the Count Fromont, one of the great 
barons, finds him sitting in a garden surrounded by his friends — 

Trouva Fromont seant en un jardin ; 

Environ lui avoit de ses amins. — Roman de Garin, i. 282. 

A favourite occupation of the ladies in the Middle Ages was making 
garlands and chaplets of flowers. In the " Lai d'Aristote " (Barbazan, 
iii. 105, 107), King Alexander's beautiful mistress is described as de- 
scending early in the morning, walking in the garden alone, and making 
herself a chaplet of flowers. In another fabliau, published in Germany 
by Adelbert Keller, a Saracenic maiden descends from her chamber into 
the garden, performs her toilette at the fountain there, and then makes 
herself a chaplet of flowers and leaves, which she puts on her head. So 
Emelie, in Chaucer's " Knight's Tale " — 

Iclothed was sche fressh for to devyse. 

Hire yolwe heer {yellotu hah-) was browdid in a tresse 

Byhynde hire bak, a yerde long, I gesse. 

And in the gardyn at the sonne upriste [sun-rise) 

Sche walketh up and doun wheer as hire liste ; 

Sche gadereth fioures, partye whyte and reede, 

To make a certeyn gerland for hire heede, 

And as an aungel hevenly sche song. 

A little farther on, Arcyte goes at daybreak into the fields to make him 
a chaplet of the leaves of woodbine or hawthorn, for it must be re- 
membered that this takes place in the month of May, which was espe- 
cially the season for wearing garlands. In " Blonde of Oxford," Jean 
of Dammartin, seeking his mistress, finds her in a meadow making 
herself a chaplet of flowers — 

Adont de la chambre s'avance, 

De la. la vit en i. prael, 

U ele faisoit un capiel. — Blonde of Oxford, p. 30. 

Our cut No. 204, taken from a well-known manuscript in the British 



THE LOVE OF FLOWERS. 



301 



Museum, of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), 
represents a party of ladies in the garden, gathering flowers, and making 
garlands. The love of flowers, as I have stated in a former chapter, 
seems to have prevailed generally among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, 
and affectionate allusions to them occur, not unfrequently, in the literary 
remains of that early period. Many of our old favourite garden-flowers 
are, I believe, derived from the Anglo-Saxon gardens. Proofs of a 
similar attachment to flowers might be quoted in abundance from the 
writings of the period subsequent to the entrance of the Normans. The 
wearing of garlands or chaplets of flowers was a common practice with 




No. 204. — Ladies making Garlands. 

both sexes. In the romantic history of the Fitz-Warines, written in the 
thirteenth century, the hero, in travelling, meets a young knight who, in 
token of his joyous humour, carries a chaplet of flowers on his head. 
In the later English romance of the " Squyer of Lowe Degree," when 
the "squyer" was preparing to do his office of carver in the hall — 

There he araied him in scarlet red, 
And set a chaplet upon his hed ; 
A belte about his sydes two, 
Withe brod barres to and fro. 

Walter de Biblesworth talks of ladies dancing the carole, their heads 
crowned with garlands of the blue-bottle flower — 



Mener karole 
Desouz chapeau de blaverole. — Vocabularies, p. 161. 



3°2 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Garlands of flowers were also the common rewards for success in the 
popular games. 

All these enjoyments naturally rendered the garden a favourite and 
important part of every man's domestic establishment ; during the 
warmer months of the year it was a chosen place of resort, especially 
after dinner. In the romance of *' Garin le Loherain," Begues is repre- 
sented as descending from his palace, after dinner, to walk with his 
fair wife Beatrice in the garden — 

En son palais fu Begues de Belin ; 
Apres mangier entra en un jardin, 
Aveuc lui fu la belle Biatris. 

— Roman de Garin, vol. ii. p. 97. 

In another part of the same romance, Begues de Belin and his barons, 
on rising from the table, went to seek recreation in the fields — 

Quant mangie ont et beu a. loisir, 

Les napes ostent, et en pres sunt sailli. 

— Ibid., vol. i. p. 203. 

The manuscript in the British Museum, from which we took our last 




No. 205. — Ladies walking in the Garden. 



illustration, furnishes the accompanying representation of a group of 
ladies walking in the garden, and gathering flowers (No. 205). 

In the " Menagier de Paris," compiled about the year 1393, its author, 
addressing his young wife, treats briefly of the behaviour of a woman 
when she is walking out, and especially when passing along the streets 



OUT-DOOR ETIQUETTE. 303 



of a town, or going to church. "As you go," he says, "look straight 
before you, with your eyelids low and fixed, looking forward to the 
ground, at five toises (thirty feet) before you, and not looking at or 
turning your eyes to man or woman who may be to your right or left, 
nor looking upwards, nor changing your look from one place to another, 
nor laughing, nor stopping to speak to anybody in the street " (vol. i. 

P- 15)- 

It must be confessed that this is, in some points, rather hard counsel 

for a lady to follow; but it is consistent with the general system of 

formalities of behaviour in the Middle Ages, upon which the ladies 

gladly took their revenge when removed from constraint. When two 

or more persons walked together, it was the custom to hold each other 

by the hands, not to walk arm in arm, which appears to be a very 

modern practice. In the romance of " Ogier le Danois,'' the emperor 

and Ogier, when reconciled, are thus represented, walking in a friendly 

manner hand in hand. The ladies in our last engraving are walking in 

this manner; and in our next (No. 206), — taken from a copy,, given in 

M. du Sommerard's " Album," from a manuscript in the library of the 

Arsenal at Paris, written and illuminated for a prince of the house of 

Burgundy, in the fifteenth century, — the lords and ladies of a noble or 

princely household are represented as walking out in the same manner. 

It is well known that the court of Burgundy, in the fifteenth century, 

offered the model of strict etiquette. This illustration gives us also a 

very good picture of a street-scene of the period to which it belongs. 

The height of gentility, however, at least, in the twelfth and thirteenth 

centuries, seems to have been to hold the lady by the finger only. It 

is in this manner that, in the romance of " Ogier le Danois," the hero 

holds the Princess Gloriande — 

Donques enmainne le bon Danois Ogier, 
E Gloriande, qui par le doit le tient. 

— Roman d Ogier, p. 1 10. 

So, in the romance of " La Violette," at the festivities given by the 
king, the guests " distributed themselves in couples in the hall {i.e. a 
gentleman with a lady), one taking the other by the finger, and so they 
arranged themselves two and two " — 



3<H 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Quant il orent asses deduit, 
Par la sale s'acoinsent tuit ; 
Li uns prent l'autre par le doi, 
Si s'arangierent doi et doi. 

— Roman de la Viohtte, p. 10. 

In the curious poem entitled " La Court de Paradis," the sainted 




No 206. — A Promenade Scene in the Fifteenth Century.' 

ladies in heaven are represented as thus walking and holding each 
other by the finger — 

L'une tint l'autre par les dois. — Barhazan, iii. 139. 



As a mark of great familiarity, two princes, Pepin's son Charles, and 
the Duke Namles, are represented in the romance of " Ogier " as one, 



GARDENING. 



3°5 




No. 207 — A Bishop Preaching 



Charles, holding his hand on the duke's shoulder, while the duke held 
him by his mantle, as they walked 
along ; they were going to church to- 
gether : — 

Kalles sa main li tint desus 1'espaule ; 
Namles tint lui par le mantel de paile. 

■ — Roman d'Ogier, p. 143. 

It may be remarked that sitting was 
equally a matter of etiquette with walk- 
ing, though we sometimes meet with 
ladies and gentlemen seated in a manner 
which is anything but ceremonious. In 
the annexed cut (No. 207), taken from 
a manuscript of the fourteenth century, 
the reference to which I have unfortunately lost, a number of ladies, 
seated on the ground, and apparently in the open air, are listening to 
the admonitions of an episcopal preacher. 

As I have introduced the subject of the love of our forefathers for 
trees and flowers, some account of gardening in the Middle Ages will 
not be out of place, especially as what has hitherto been written on the 
history of gardening in England during this early period has been very 
imperfect and incorrect. We have no direct information relating to 
the gardens of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers — in fact, our knowledge is 
limited to a few words gathered from the old vocabularies. The or- 
dinary names for a garden, wyrt-tun and wyrt-geard, a plant-inclosure 
and a plant-yard, are entirely indefinite, for the word wyrt was applied 
to all plants whatever, and perhaps they indicate what we should call 
the kitchen garden. The latter word, which was sometimes spelt ort- 
geard, orc-geard, and orcyrd, was the origin of our modern orchard, 
which is now limited to an inclosure of fruit-trees. Flowers were pro- 
bably cultivated in the inclosed space round the houses. It would 
appear that the Saxons, before they became acquainted with the Romans, 
cultivated very few plants, if we may judge from the circumstance that 
throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the names by which these were 
known were nearly all derived from the Latin. The leek appears to 
have been the principal table-vegetable among the Anglo-Saxons, as it 



306 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



was among the Welsh; its name, kac, or leak, is pure Anglo-Saxon, 
and its importance was considered so much above that of any other 
vegetable, that leac-tun, the leek-garden, became the common name for 
the kitchen-garden, and kac-weard, a leek-keeper, was used to designate 
the gardener. The other alliaceous plants were considered as so many- 
varieties of the leek, and were known by such names as enne-leac, or 
ynne-leac, supposed to be the onion, and gar-leac, or garlic. Bean is 
also an Anglo-Saxon word, but, singularly enough, the Anglo-Saxons 
seem not to have been originally acquainted with peas, for the only 
name they had for them was the Latin pisa, and pyse. Even for the 
cabbage tribe, the only Anglo-Saxon name we know is simply the Latin 
brassica; and the cole wort, which was named cawl, and cawl-wyrt, was 
derived from the Latin caulis. So the turnip was called nape, from the 
Latin napits ; and rcedic, or radish, is perhaps from raphanns.* Garden 
cresses, parsley, mint, sage, rue, and other herbs,t were in use, but 
mostly, except the cresses, with Latin names. 

We have long lists of flowering plants in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies, 
but as they are often difficult to identify, and, being chiefly enumerated 
for their medicinal qualities, are mostly wild plants, they throw little 
light on the character of the flower-garden. For the garden rose and 
the lily they used the Roman names rose and lilie; the latter appears 
to have been an especially favourite flower among the Anglo-Saxons. 
Among other plants, evidently belonging to the garden, are southern- 
wood, sutheme-wude ; the turnsole or sunflower, called sigel-hwerfe (the 
gem-turned) or soha.ce (which is merely the Latin solsequiuni) ; the violet, 
{clcefre) ; the marigold, called read-clcefre ; the gilliflower, hwit-clcefre ; the 
periwinkle, pervincce ; the honeysuckle, hunig-sucle ; the piony, for which 
the Anglo-Saxons had only the Latin word pwnia; the daisy, dceges-eage ; 

* To show the extreme ignorance which has prevailed on the history of English 
gardening in the Middle Ages, it need only be mentioned that Loudon, " Encyclo- 
peedia of Gardening" (edition of 1850), was not aware that the leek had been 
cultivated in England before the time of Tusser, the latter half of the sixteenth 
century (p. 854) ; and states that garlic " has been cultivated in this country since 
1548 " (p. 855) ; and that the radish is " an annual, a native of China, and was men- 
tioned by Gerard in 1584 " (p. 846). 

+ Loudon (p. 887) was not aware that the cultivation of sage dated further back 
than the time of Gerard, who wrote in 1597, and he could trace back to no older date 
the cultivation of rue. 



FRUIT-TREES. 307 



and the laur-beam, which was perhaps the bay-tree rather than the 
laurel. 

The chief fruit of the Anglo-Saxons was undoubtedly the apple, the 
name of which, ceppel, belongs to their language. The tree was called 
an apulder, and the only varieties mentioned are the sarmelst apulder, or 
souring apple-tree, and the smite apulder, or sweeting apple-tree. The 
Anglo-Saxons had orchards containing only apple-trees, to which they 
gave the name of an apulder-tun, or apple-tree garden ; of the fruit of 
which they made what they called, and we still call, cider, and which 
they also called ceppel-win, or apple-wine. They appear to have received 
the pear from the Romans, as the names pera, a pear, and piriga, a pear- 
tree, were evidently taken from pirns. They had also derived from the 
Roman gardens, no doubt, the cherry-tree (cyrs-treow, or ciris-beam, from 
the Latin cerasus), the peach (persoc-treow, from persicarius), the mulberry 
(mor-beam, from morns), the chestnut {cysteti, cyst, or cystel-beam, from 
castaneus),* perhaps the almond {magdala-treow, from amigdalus), the 
fig (fic-beam, from ficus), and the pine {pin-treow, from pinus). The 
small kernels of the pine were used very extensively in the Middle Ages, 
in the same way as olives. We must add to these the plum (phwi-treow), 
the name of which is Anglo-Saxon; the medlar, which was known in 
Anglo-Saxon by a very unexplainable name, but one which was preserved 
to a comparatively recent period ; the quince, which was called a cod- 
ceple, or bag-apple ; the nut (hnutu), and the hazel-nut (hasel-hmttu). 
They called the olive an oil-tree {ale-beam), which would seem to prove 
that they considered its principal utility to be for making oil. The vine 
was well known to the Anglo-Saxons ; they called it the win-lreow, or 
wine-tree, its fruit, winberige, or wine berries, and a bunch of grapes, 
geclystre, a cluster. We find no Anglo-Saxon words for gooseberries or 
currants ; but our forefathers were well acquainted with the strawberry 
(strea-berige), and the raspberry, which they called hynd-berige. Perhaps 

* Our word chestnut is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyste-hnutu, the nut of the 
cyste-tree. I may remark, on these names of fruits, that Loudon imagined that the 
peach was "introduced into England about the middle of the sixteenth century" 
("Encyclopaedia of Gardening," p. 912); and that of the fig, the "first trees were 
brought over from Italy by Cardinal Pole, in 1525." He seems to think that 
quinces and mulberries came into this country also in the course of the sixteenth 
century. 



308 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

these last-mentioned fruits, which are known to be natives of Britain, 
were known only in their wild state.* 

The earliest account of an English garden is given by Alexander 
Neckam, who flourished in the latter half of the twelfth century, in the 
sixty-sixth chapter of the second book of his treatise De Naturis Rerum, 
which has been edited by the writer of the present volume in the series 
of historical volumes published under the direction of the Master of 
the Rolls. He introduces at least one plant, the mandrake, which 
was fabulous, and gives several names which I shall be obliged to leave 
in his original Latin, as, perhaps through corruption of the text, I cannot 
interpret them, but there can be little doubt that it is in general a correct 
enumeration of the plants and trees cultivated in a complete English 
garden of the period. "A garden," he says, "should be adorned on 
this side with roses, lilies, the marigold, molis, and mandrakes ; and on 
that side with parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, 
hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, ortidano, 
and the piony. Let there also be beds (arece) enriched with onions, 
leeks, garlic, melons, and scallions (hinnuilis). The garden is also en- 
nobled by the cucumber which creeps on its belly, and by the sopori- 
ferous poppy, as well as by the daffodil and the acanthus. Nor let pot- 
herbs be wanting, if you can help it, such as beets, herb mercury, orache, 
the acedula (sorrel ?), and the mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to 
have anise, mustard, white pepper, and wormwood." Neckam then goes 
on to the fruit-trees. " A noble garden," he says, " will give you med- 
lars, quinces, the pearmain [volema), peaches, pears of St Regie, pome- 
granates, citrons (or lemons), oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." When 
Neckam speaks of a " noble garden," he, of course, speaks of that of a 
great baron or prince, and enumerates fruits of choice, and mostly above 
the common range. Medlars and quinces were formerly held in great 
esteem and much used. I have ventured to interpret volema as mean- 

* There is, however, an Anglo-Saxon name of a tree which I suspect has been 
misinterpreted. The glossaries give "ramnus, J>efe-J>orn," and our lexicographers, 
taking the old sense of the word rhamnus, interpret it, the dog-rose. But in a very 
curious glossary of names of plants of the middle of the thirteenth century, printed in 
my "Volume of Glossaries," in which the meaning of the Latin word is given in 
Anglo-Norman and in English, we have " Ramni, grosiler, J>efe-]>om" (p. 141). I 
have no doubt that the thefe-thorn was the gooseberry. In the dialect of Norfolk, 
gooseberries are still called theabes. 



GARDEN-FRUITS AND PLANTS. 309 

ing the pearmain, which was considered one of the choicest apples, as 
the apple is not mentioned in the list, and as in one of the early glossaries 
that meaning is attached to the word. Peaches were, as we have seen, 
known to the Anglo-Saxons; and in 1276 we find slips of peach-trees 
mentioned in an official record as planted in the king's garden at West- 
minster. The pear of St Regie was one of the choice kinds of pears 
brought from France, and it and several other kinds of pears are enum- 
erated in the accounts of the Earl of Lincoln's garden in Holborn 
(London) in 1296. It is rather surprising that Mr Hudson Turner, in 
his very valuable volume on domestic architecture, where he supposed 
that mala aurea in Neckam's list were intended for the golden apples of 
the Hesperides, should not have known that the malum aureum of the 
Muddle Ages was the orange. Pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, 
dates; and figs, are known to have been cultivated in England at differ- 
ent periods, but it is not probable that the fruit came often to perfection. 
It may be remarked that Neckam gives a separate chapter to the culti- 
vation of the vine, which belonged to the vineyard, and not to the 
garden. After an enumeration of plants which were not grown in West- 
ern Europe, Neckam gives a list of others, known for their medicinal 
qualities, some of which can hardly have been planted in a garden, 
unless it belonged to a physician ; although it appears to have been the 
custom to devote a corner of the garden to the medicinal plants most 
in use, in order that they might be ready at hand when wanted. The 
gardener's tools in the twelfth century, as enumerated by Neckam in his 
treatise De Utensilibus, were few and simple ; he had an axe, or twibilL, 
a knife for grafting, a spade, and a pruning-hook. 

John de Garlande lived during the first half of the thirteenth century. 
He was an Englishman, but had established himself as a scholar in the 
University of Paris, so that the description of his garden which he gives 
in his " Dictionarus " may be considered as that of a garden in the 
neighbourhood of Paris, which, however, probably differed little from 
a garden in England. It may be considered as the garden of a respect- 
able burgher. " In Master John's garden are these plants, sage, parsley, 
dittany, hyssop, celandine, fennel, pellitory, the rose, the lily, and the 
violet; and at the side (i.e. in the hedge), the nettle, the thistle, and fox- 
gloves. His garden also contains medicinal herbs, namely, mercury and 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the mallow, agrimony, with nightshade, and the marigold." Master John's 
gardener had also a garden for his pot-herbs, in which grew borage, leeks, 
garlic, mustard, onions, cibols, and scallions ; and in his shrubbery grew 
pimpernel, mouseare, self-heal, buglos, adder's-tongue, and " other herbs 
good for men's bodies." * Master John had in his fruit-garden, cherry- 
trees, pear-trees, apple-trees, plum-trees, quinces, medlars, peaches, 
chestnuts, nuts, walnuts, figs, and grapes. Walter de Bibblesworth, 
writing in England towards the close of the thirteenth century, enum- 
erates as the principal fruit-trees in a common garden, apples, pears, and 

cherries — 

Pomere, perere, e cerecer ; 

and adds the plum-tree {prune?-), and the quince-tree (coingner). 

The cherry, indeed, appears to have been one of the most popular of 

fruits in England during the mediaeval period. The records of the time 

contain purchases of cherry-trees for the king's garden in Westminster 

in 1238 and 1277, and cherries and cherry-trees are enumerated in 

all the glossaries from the times of the Anglo-Saxons to the sixteenth 

century. The Earl of Lincoln had cherry-trees in his garden in Holborn 

towards the close of the thirteenth century, and during the same century 

we have allusions to the cultivation of the cherry in other parts of the 

kingdom. The allusions to cherries in the early poetry are not at all 

unfrequent, and they were closely mixed up with popular manners and 

feelings. It appears to have been the custom, from a rather early period, 

to have fairs or feasts, probably in the cherry-orchards, during the period 

that the fruit was ripe, which were called cherry-fairs, and sometimes 

cherry-feasts ; and these are remembered, if they do not still exist, in our 

great cherry districts, such as Worcestershire and Kent. They were brief 

moments of great gaiety and enjoyment, and the poets loved to quote 

them as emblems of the transitory character of all worldly things. In 

the latter part of the fourteenth century, the poet Gower, speaking of 

the teachers of religion and morality, says — 

They prechen us in audience 

That no man schalle his soule empeyre [impair'), 

For alle is but a cherye-fayre. 

* It may be well to remark, once for all, that it is almost impossible to identify 
some of these mediaeval names of plants. 



CHERRY FEASTS AND FLOWERS. 311 



And the same writer again — 

Sumtyme I drawe into memoyre, 
How sorow may not ever laste, 
And so cometh hope in at laste, 
Whan I non other foode knowe ; 
And that endureth but a throwe, 
Ryght as it were a chery feste. 

So again, under the reign of Henry IV., about the year 1411, Occleve, 
in his poem " De regimine principum," recently printed for the Rox- 
burghe Club, says (p. 47) — 

Thy lyfe, my sone, is but a chery-feire. 

During the remainder of the fifteenth century, the allusions to the 
cherry-fairs are very frequent.* Yet in face of all this, and still more 
abundant evidence, Loudon (" Encyclopaedia of Gardening," edition of 
1850) says, "Some suppose that the cherries introduced by the Romans 
into Britain were lost, and that they were re-introduced in the time of 
Henry VIII. by Richard Haines (it should be Harris), the fruiterer to 
that monarch. But though we have no proof that cherries were in 
England at the time of the Norman Conquest, or for some centuries after 
it, yet Warton has proved, by a quotation from Lydgate, a poet who 
wrote about or before 1415, that the hawkers in London were wont to 
expose cherries for sale, in the same manner as is now done early in the 
season." 

To turn from the fruit-garden to the flower-garden, modern writers 
have fallen into many similar mistakes as to the supposed recent date of 
the introduction of various plants into this country. Loudon, for in- 
stance, says that we owe the introduction of the gilliflower, or clove-pink 
(dianthus caryophyllus), to the Flemings who took refuge on our shores 
from the savage persecutions of the Duke of Alva in the latter half of 
the sixteenth century ; whereas this flower was certainly well known, 
under the name of gillofres, ages before. Roses, lilies, violets, 
and periwinkles, seem to have continued to be the favourite garden- 
flowers. A manuscript of the fifteenth century in the British Museum 
(MS. Sloane, No. 1201), furnishes us with a list of plants then considered 
necessary for a garden, arranged first alphabetically, and then in classes, 

* For many references, the reader is referred to Halliwell's "Dictionary of Archaic 
and Provincial Words," under the word Cherry-Fair. 



312 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

of which I will here give verbatim the latter part, as the best illustration of 
the mediaeval notion of a garden, and as being, at the same time, a very- 
complete list. After the alphabetical list, the manuscript goes on : — 

Of the same herbes for potage. 
Borage, langdebefe (i), vyolettes, malowes, marcury, daundelyoun, avence, 
myntes, sauge, parcely, goldes (2), mageroum, (3), ffenelle, carawey, red 
nettylle, oculus Christi (4), daysys, chervelle, lekez, colewortes, rapez, tyme, 
cyves, betes, alysaundre, letyse, betayne, columbyne, allia, astralogya 
rotunda, astralogia longa, basillicam (5), dylle, deteyne, hertestong, radiche, 
white pyper, cabagez, sedewale, spynache, coliaundre, ffoothistylle (6), orage, 
cartabus, lympens, nepte, clarey, pacience. 

Of the sa.7tie herbes for sauce. 
Hertestonge, sorelle, pelytory, pelytory of spayne, deteyne, vyolettes, 
parcely, myntes. 

Also, of the same herbes for the coppe. 

Cost, costmary, sauge, isope, rose mary, gyllofre, goldez, clarey, mage- 
roum, rue. 

Also, of the same herbes for a salade. 

Buddus of stanmarche (7), vyolette flourez, parcely, red myntes, syves (8), 
cresse of Boleyne, purselane, ramsons, calamyntes, primerose buddus, dayses, 
rapounses, daundelyoun, rokette, red nettelle, borage flourez, croppus of red 
ffenelle, selbestryve, chykynwede. 

Also, herbez to sty lie (distil). 

Endyve, red rose, rose mary, dragans (9), skabiose, ewfrace (10), wermode, 
mogwede, beteyne, wylde tansey, sauge, isope, ersesmart. 

Also, herbes for savour and beaute. 
Gyllofre gentyle, mageroum gentyle, brasyle, palma Christi, stycadose, 
meloncez, arcachaffe, scalacely (11), philyppendula (12), popy royalle, ger- 
maundre, cowsloppus of Jerusalem, verveyne, dylle, seynt Mare, garlek. 

Also, rotys (roots ) for a gar dyne. 
Parsenepez, turnepez, radyche, karettes, galyngale, eryngez (13), saffrone. 

Also, for an herbere. 
Vynes, rosers, lyle's, thewberies (14), almondez, bay-trese, gourdes, date- 
trese, peche-trese, pyneappulle, pyany romain, rose campy, cartabus, seliane, 
columbyne gentyle, elabre. 



(1) Buglos. (2) The corn-marigold. (3) Marjoram. (4) Clary. (5) Basil. (6) 
Probably sowthistle, although it is placed under the letter F in the alphabetical list. 
(7) The plant Alexander. (8) Cives. (9) The herb serpentine. (10) Eyebright. 
(11) Better known as Solomon's seal. (12) Dropwort. (13) Eringoes. (14) Goose- 
berries ? See before, p. 308. 



THE MYSTERIES OF GRAFTING. 313 

The processes of gardening were simple and easy, and the gardener's 
skill consisted chiefly in the knowledge of the seasons for sowing and 
planting different herbs and trees, and of the astrological circumstances 
under which these processes could be performed most advantageously. 
The great ambition of the mediaeval horticulturist was to excel in the 
various mysteries of grafting, and he entertained theories on this subject 
of the most visionary character, many of which were founded on the 
writings of the ancients ; for the mediaeval theorists were accustomed to 
select from the doctrines of antiquity that which was most visionary, 
and it usually became still more visionary in their hands. Two English 
treatises on gardening were current in the fifteenth century, one founded 
upon the Latin treatise of Palladius, and entitled " Godfrey upon 
Palladie de Agricultura," the other by Nicholas Bollarde, a monk of 
Westminster — the monks were great gardeners. These treatises occur 
not unfrequently in manuscripts, and both are found in the British 
Museum, in the Sloane MS., No. 7. An abridgment of them was edited 
by Mr Halliwell, from the Porkington manuscript, in a collection of 
" Early English Miscellanies," printed for the Warton Club. In these 
treatises, cherry-trees appear to have been more than any others the 
subjects of experiment, and to have been favourite stocks for grafting. 
Among the receipts given in these treatises, we may mention those for 
making cherries grow without stones, and other fruit without cores ; for 
making the fruit of trees bear any colour you like ; for making old trees 
young ; for making sour fruit sweet ; and " to have grapes ripe as soon 
as pears or cherries." This was to be brought about by grafting the 
vine on a cherry-tree, according to the following directions, the spelling 
of which I modernise : — " Set a vine by a cherry till it grow, and at 
the beginning of February when time is, make a hole through the 
cherry-tree at what height thou wilt, and draw through the vine branch 
so that it fill the hole, and shave away the old bark of the vine as much 
as shall be in the hole, and put it in so that the part shaven fill the hole 
full, and let it stand a year till they be ' souded ' together, then cut 
away the root end of the vine, and lap it with clay round about, and 
keep it so after other graftings aforesaid." This is from Nicholas 
Bollarde. Godfrey upon Palladius tells us how " to have many roses. 
Take the hard pepins that be right ripe, and sow them in February or 



3 H THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

March, and when they spring, water them well, and after a year com- 
plete thou mayest transplant them ; and if thou wilt have timely (early) 
roses, delve about the roots one or two handbreadths, and water their 
scions with warm water ; and for to keep them long, put them in honey- 
combs." According to the receipts edited by Mr Halliwell, " If thou 
wilt that in the stone of a peach-apple (this was the ordinary name for 
a peach) be found a nut-kernel, graft a spring (sprout) of a peach-tree 
on the stock of a nut-tree. Also a peach-tree shall bring forth pome- 
granates, if it be sprong (sprinkled) ofttimes with goat's milk three 
days when it beginneth to flower. Also the apples of a peach-tree 
shall wax red, if its scion be grafted on a playne tree." Such were the 
intellectual vagaries of " superstitious eld." 

Peaches are frequently mentioned among the fruit of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries ; but nectarines or apricots are not met with 
before the fifteenth century. The latter was called in old English by 
their French name of abricots, and subsequently, and still more fre- 
quently, apricocks. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Amusements. — Performing- Bears. — Hawking and Hunting. — Riding. — 
Carriages. — Travelling. — Inns and Taverns. — Hospitality. 

DURING the period of which we are treating, the same rough 
sports were in vogue among the uneducated classes that had 
existed for ages before, and which continued for ages after. Many of 
these were trials of strength, such as wrestling and throwing weights, 
with archery, and other exercises of that description ; others were of a 
less civilised character, such as cock-fighting and bear and bull baiting. 
These latter were favourite amusements, and there was scarcely a town 
or village of any magnitude which had not its bull-ring. It was a muni- 
cipal enactment in all towns and cities that no butcher should be allowed 
to kill a bull until it had been baited. The bear was an animal in great 
favour in the Middle Ages, and was not only used for baiting, but was 
tamed and taught various performances. I have already, in a former 
chapter, given an example of a 
dancing-bear under the Anglo- 
Saxons ; the accompanying cut 
(No. 208) is another, taken from 
a manuscript of the beginning of 
the thirteenth century, in the 
British Museum (MS. Arundel, 
No. 91). 

I fear the fact cannot be con- 
cealed that the ladies of former 

days assisted not unfrequently at these rough and unfeminine pastimes. 
There can be no doubt that they were customary spectators of the 




No. 208. — A Dancing-Bear. 



3i6 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



baiting of bulls and bears. Henry VIII. 's two daughters, Mary and 
Elizabeth, witnessed this coarse amusement, as we are assured by con- 
temporary writers, with great satisfaction. The scene represented in 
our cut No. 209, which is copied from one of the carved seats, of the 
fourteenth century, in Gloucester Cathedral, is chiefly remarkable for 




No. 209. — Baiting the Bear. 

the small degree of energy — the quiet dignity, in fact — displayed by the 
actors in it. 

Hawking and hunting, especially the former, were the favourite re- 
creations of the upper classes. Hawking was considered so honourable 
an occupation, that people were in the custom of carrying the hawk on 
their fists when they walked or rode out, when they visited or went to 
public assemblies, and even in church, as a mark of their gentility. In 
the illuminations we not unfrequently see ladies and gentlemen seated 
in conversation, bearing their hawks on their hands. There was gener- 
ally a, perche in the chamber expressly set aside for the favourite bird, 
on which he was placed at night, or by day when the other occupations 

of its possessor rendered it inconvenient to 
carry it on the hand. Such a perche, with 
the hawk upon it, is represented in our cut 
No. 210, taken from a manuscript of the 
romance of " Meliadus," of the fourteenth 
century (MS. Addit. in the British Museum, 
No. 12,224). Hawking was in some respects a complicated science; 
numerous treatises were written to explain and elucidate it, and it was 
submitted to strict laws. Much knowledge and skill were shown in 
choosing the hawks, and in breeding and training them, and the value 
of a well-chosen and well-trained bird was considerable. When carried 
about by its master or mistress, the hawk was held to the hand by a 
strap of leather or silk, called a Jesse, which was fitted to the legs of the 




No. 210. — A Hawk on its Perche. 



HA WKING. 



317 



bird, and passed between the fingers of the hand. Small bells were also 
attached to their legs, one on each. The 
accompanying cut (No. 211), from a manu- 
script in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris 
(No. 6956), represents the falconer or keeper 
of the hawks holding in one hand what ap- 
pears to be the jesse ; he has a bird in his 
right hand, while another is perched on a 
short post, which is often alluded to in the 
directions for breeding hawks. The falconer 
wears hawks' gloves, which were made ex- 
pressly to protect the hands against the No 2II ,_ Haw ks and their Keeper, 
bird's talons. 

Hawking was a favourite recreation with the ladies, and in the illumi- 
nated manuscripts they often figure in scenes of this kind. Sometimes 
they are on foot, as in the group represented in our cut No. 212, taken 





No. 212. — Ladies' Hawking. 

from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) One 
lady has let go her hawk, which is in the act of striking a heron ; the 
other retains her hawk on her hand. The latter, as will be seen, is 
hooded. Each of the ladies who possess hawks has one glove only — 
the hawk's glove ; the other hand is without gloves. They took with 
them, as shown here, dogs in couples to start the game. The dogs used 
for this purpose were spaniels, and the old treatise on domestic affairs 



318 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



entitled " Le Menagier de Paris," gives particular directions for choos- 
ing them. In the illuminations, hawking parties are more frequently- 
represented on horseback than on foot ; and often there is a mixture of 
riders and pedestrians. The treatise just referred to directs that the 
horse for hawking should be a low one, easy to mount and dismount, 
and very quiet, that he may go slowly, and show no restiveness. Hawk- 
ing appears to have commenced at the beginning of August ; and until 
the middle of that month it was confined almost entirely to partridges. 
Quails, we are told, came in the middle of August, and from that time 
forward everything seems to have been considered game that came to 
hand, for when other birds fail, the ladies are told that they may hunt 
fieldfares, and even jays and magpies. September and October were 
the busiest hawking months. 

Hawking was, indeed, a favourite diversion with the ladies, and they 
not only accompanied the gentlemen to this sport, but frequently en- 
gaged in it alone. The hawking of the ladies, however, appears to have 
been especially that of herons and water-fowl ; and this was called going 
to the river {alter en riviere), and was very commonly pursued on foot. 
It may be mentioned that the fondness of the ladies for the diversion of 
hawking is alluded to in the twelfth century by John of Salisbury. The. 
hawking on the river, indeed, seems to have been that particular branch 
of the sport which gave most pleasure to all classes, and it is that which 
is especially represented in the drawings in the Anglo-Saxon manu- 
scripts. Dogs were commonly used in hawking to rouse the game in 
the same manner as at the present day, but in hawking on the river, 
where dogs were of course less effective, other means were adopted. 
In a manuscript already quoted in the present chapter (MS. Reg. 2 B. 
vii.), of the beginning of the fourteenth century, a group of ladies hawk- 
ing on the banks of a river are accompanied by a man, perhaps the fal- 
coner, who makes a noise to rouse the water-fowl. Our cut No. 213 is 
taken from a very interesting manuscript of the fourteenth century, made 
for the monastery of St Bartholomew, in Smithfield, and now preserved 
in the library of the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.) ; it is part of 
a scene in which ladies are hawking on a river, and a female is rousing 
the water-fowl with a tabor. The fountain is one of those conventional 
objects by which the mediaeval artist indicated a spring, or running 



ROUSING THE GAME. 



319 



stream. This seems to have been a very common method of rousing 
the game ; and it is represented in one of the carved seats, or misereres 
(as they have been termed technically), in Gloucester Cathedral, which 




, A r4vA-'^-' - 



No. 213. — Rousing Game. 

is copied in our cut No. 214. This scene is rather curiously illustrated 
by an anecdote told by an old chronicler, Ralph de Diceto, of a man 




No. 214. — Following the Hawk. 

who went to the river to hunt teal with his hawk, and roused them 
with " what is called by the river-hawkers a tabor." * The tending of 
the hawks used in these diversions was no slight occupation in the 

"Quidam juvenis de domo domini Lundoniensis episcopi, spiritum habens in 
avibus coeli ludere, nisum suum docuit cercellas affectare propensius. Itaque juxta 
sonitum illius ihstrumenti quod a ripatoribus vocatur taiur, subito cercella qusedam 
alarum remigio pernicitur evolavit. Nisus autem illusus lupum quendam nantem in 
locis sub undis crispantibus intercepit, invasit, et cepit, et super spatium sicut visum 
est xl. pedumse cum nova prasda recepit."— Rod. de Diceto, ap. Decern Striptores, 
col. 666. 



320 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



mediaeval household, and was the subject of no little study; they were 
cherished with the utmost care, and carried about familiarly on the 
wrist in all places and under all sorts of circumstances. It was a com- 
mon practice, indeed, to go to church with the hawk on the wrist. 
One of the early French poets, Gaces de la Buigne, who wrote a metri- 
cal treatise on hunting in the middle of the fourteenth century, advises 
his readers to carry their hawks with them wherever there were as- 
semblies of people, whether in churches or elsewhere — 

La ou les gens sont amasses, 
Soit en l'eglise, ou autre part. 

This is explained more fully by the author of the " Menagier de Paris" 
(vol. ii. p. 296), who wrote especially for the instruction of the female 
members of his family. "At this point of falconry," he says, "it is ad- 
visable more than ever to hold the hawk on the wrist, and to carry it to 

the pleadings (courts of justice), and 
among people to the churches, and 
in other assemblies, and in the 
streets, and to hold it day and night 
as continually as possible, and some- 
times to perch it in the streets, that 
it may see people, horses, carts, 
dogs, and become acquainted with 

all things And sometimes, 

in the house, let it be perched on 
the dogs, that the dogs may see it, 
and it them." It was thus that the 
practice of carrying a hawk on the 
wrist became a distinction of people of gentle blood. The annexed 
engraving (No. 215), taken from the same manuscript last quoted (MS. 
Reg. 10 E. iv.), represents a lady tending her hawks, which are seated 
on their "perche." 

The author of the " Menagier de Paris," a little farther on than the 
place last quoted (p. 311), goes on to say, "At the end of the month of 
September, and after, when hawking of quails and partridges is over, 
and even in winter, you may hawk at magpies, at jackdaws, at teal, 




No. 215. — A Lady and her Hawks. 



ARCHERY. 



321 



which are in river, or others, ... at blackbirds, thrushes, jays, and wood- 
cocks; and for this purpose you may carry a bow and a bolt, in order 
that, when the blackbird takes shelter in a bush, and dare not quit 
it for the hawk which hovers over and watches it, the lady or damsel 
who knows how to shoot may kill it with the bolt." The manuscript 
which has furnished us with the preceding illustrations gives us the 
accompanying sketch (No. 216) of a lady shooting with her bolt, or 




No. 216. — Ladies Shooting Rabbits. 

boitjon (as it was termed in French), — an arrow with a large head, for 
striking birds ; but in this instance she is aiming not at birds, but at 
rabbits. Archery was also a favourite recreation with the ladies in the 
Middle Ages, and it no doubt is in itself an extremely good exercise, 
in a gymnastic point of view. The fair shooters seem to have 




■^^r- 




No. 217. — The Lady at the Rabbit- Warren. 

employed bolts more frequently than the sharp-headed arrows j but 
there is no want of examples in the illuminated manuscripts, in 
which females are represented as using the sharp-headed arrow, and 
sometimes they are seen shooting at deer. This custom prevailed 
during a long period, and is alluded to not unfrequently at so late a 



322 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



date as the sixteenth century. We learn from Leland's " Collectanea " 
(vol. iv. p. 278), that when the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry 
VII., was on her way to Scotland, a hunting-party was got up for her 
in the park at Alnwick, and that she killed a buck with an arrow. 
Similar feats were at times performed by Queen Elizabeth ; but she 
seems to have preferred the cross-bow to the long-bow. The scene 
represented in our cut No. 217 is from the same manuscript; the 
relative proportions of the dog and the rabbit seem to imply a satirical 
aim. Our next cut (No. 218), taken from MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., repre- 
sents ladies hunting the stag. One, on horseback, is winding the horn 
and starting the game, in which the other plants her arrow most skil- 




No. 218. — Ladies Hunting the Stag. 



fully and scientifically. The dog used on this occasion is intended to 
be a greyhound. 

It must be remarked that, in all the illuminations of the period we 
are describing, which represent ladies engaged in hunting or hawking, 
when on horseback they are invariably and unmistakably represented 
riding astride. This is evidently the case in this group (No. 218). 
It has been already shown, in former chapters, that from a very early 
period it was a usual custom with the ladies to ride sideways, or with 
side-saddles. Most of the mediaeval artists were so entirely ignorant 
of perspective, and they were so much tied to conventional modes of 
representing things, that when, no doubt, they intended to represent 
ladies riding sideways., the latter seem often as if they were riding 
astride. But in many instances., and especially in the scenes of hunt- 



LADIES ON HORSEBACK. 



323 



ing and hawking, there can be no doubt that they were riding in the 
latter fashion ; and it is probable that they were taught to ride both 
ways, the side-saddle being considered the most courtly, while it was 
considered safer to sit astride in the chase. A passage has been often 
quoted from Gower's " Confessio Amantis," in which a troop of ladies 
is described, all mounted on fair white ambling horses, with splendid 
saddles, and it is added that "everichone (every one) ride on side," 
which probably means that this was the most fashionable style of 
riding. But, as shown in a former chapter (p. 84), it has been rather 
hastily assumed that this is a proof that it was altogether a new fashion. 
Our next cut (No. 219), taken from a manuscript in the French National 
Library (No. 7178), of the fourteenth century, represents two ladies 




No. 219.— Ladies Riding. 



riding in the modern fashion, except that the left leg appears to be 
raised very awkwardly ; but this appearance we must perhaps ascribe 
only to the bad drawing. It must be observed also that these ladies 
are seated on the wrong side of the horse, which is probably an error 
of the draughtsman. Perhaps there was a different arrangement of 
the dress for the two modes of riding, although there was so little of 
what we now call delicacy in the mediseval manners, that this would 
be by no means necessary. Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath as 
wearing spurs, and as enveloped in a " foot-mantle " — 

Uppon an amblere esely sche sat, 
Wymplid ful wel, and on hire heed an hat 



324 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



As brood as is a bocler, or a targe ; 

A foot-mantel aboute hire hupes {hips) large, 

And on hire feet a paire of spores scharpe. 

— Cant. Tales, 1. 471. 

Travelling on horseback was now more common than at an earlier 

period, and this was not unfrequently a subject of popular complaint. 

In fact, men who rode on horseback considered themselves much above 

the pedestrians ; they often went in companies, and were generally 

accompanied with grooms, and other riotous followers, who committed 

all sorts of depredations and violence on the peasantry in their way. A 

satirical song of the latter end of the reign of Edward I., represents our 

Saviour as discouraging the practice of riding. " While God was on 

earth," says the writer, " and wandered wide, what was the reason He 

would not ride ? Because He would not have a groom to go by His side, 

nor the grudging (or discontent) of any gadling to jaw or to chide " — 

Whil God was on erthe 

And wondrede wyde, 
Whet wes the resoun 

"Why he nolde ryde ? 
For he nolde no groom 

To go by hys syde, 
Ne grucchyng of no gedelyng 

To chaule ne to chyde. 

" Listen to me, horsemen," continues this satirist, " and I will tell 

you news — that ye shall hang, and be 
lodged in hell " — 

Herkneth hideward, horsmen, 
A tidyng ich ou telle, 

That ye shulen hongen, 
Ant herbarewen in helle ! 

The clergy were great riders, and 
abbots and monks are not unfrequently 
figured on horseback. Our cut No. 
220 (from MS. Cotton, Nero, D. vii.) 
V represents an abbot riding, with a hat 
over his hood ; he is giving his bene- 
diction in return to the salute of some 
traveller, 
knight still carried his spear with him in travelling, as the 




220. — An Abbot Travelling 



passing 
The 



THE TRAPPINGS OF THE HORSE. 



325 




No. 221. — A Knight and his Steed. 



footman carried his staff. In our cut No. 221, from a manuscript of 
the fourteenth century in the Biblio- 
theque Nationale in Paris (No. 6963), 
the rider, though not armed, carries 
his spear with him. The saddle in 
this instance is singularly and rather 
rudely formed. It was a great point 
of vanity in the Middle Ages in Eng- 
land to hang the caparisons of the 
horse with small bells, which made a 
jingling noise. In the romance of 
" Richard Coeur de Lion " (Weber, ii. 60), a messenger coming to King 
Richard has no less than five hundred such bells suspended to his 

horse — 

His trappys wer off tuely sylke, 
With five hundred belles ryngande. 

And again, in the same romance (vol. ii. p. 223), we are told, in speak- 
ing of the Sultan of " Damas," that his horse was well furnished in this 

respect — 

Hys crouper heeng al fulle off belles, 
And hys peytrel, and hys arsoun ; 
Three myle myghte men here the soun. 

The bridle, however, was the part of 
the harness usually loaded with bells, 
and according to Chaucer, it was a 
vanity especially affected by the 
monks ; for the poet tells us of his 
monk, that — 

Whan he rood, men might his bridel heere 
Gyngle in a whistlyng wynd so cleere, 
And eek as lowde as doth the chapel belle. 
— Cant. Tales, 1. 169. 

The rider is seldom furnished with 

a whip, bepause he urged his steed 

forward with his spurs ; but female riders and persons of lower degree 

have often whips, which generally consist of several lashes, each having 

usually a knob at the end. Such a whip is seen in our cut No. 222, 




No. 222. — A Horsewhip. 



326 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum 
(MS. Arundel. No. 91), which represents a countryman driving a horse 
of burthen ; and he not only uses the whip, but he tries further to 
urge him on by twisting his tail. A whip with one lash — rather an 
unusual example — is in the hand of the woman driving the cart 
in our cut No. 223, which is taken from a manuscript of the romance 
of " Meliadus," in the French National Library (No. 6961), belong- 
ing to the fourteenth century. The lady here is also evidently riding 
astride. The cart in which she is carrying home the wounded knight 
is of a simple and rude construction. As yet, indeed, carriages for 
travelling were very little in use ; and to judge by the illuminations, 




No. 223. — Lady and Cart. 



they were only employed for kings and very powerful nobles in cere- 
monial processions. 

There was, however, in use from a rather early period, perhaps soon 
after the Normans established themselves in England, a sort of carriage 
for the conveyance of ladies, which was rather more elegant in its form 
than the ordinary cart, though it was called by a name derived from the 
same Latin root carrus. It was called a car, or, as the letter c was 
then generally softened, a char. Ladies of rank rode in a char. In the 
beautiful illuminations to the " Romance of the Rose," in the Harleian 
manuscript, the lady Venus is represented as riding in a char (drawn 
by doves instead of horses), which seems to have been considered as a 
great sign of pride and ostentation in the thirteenth century, and not to 
be used by ordinary people. An ordonnance of Philip le Bel, King of 
France, in the year 1294, forbids the use of chars to the wives of citi- 



HORSES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



327 



zens. The accompanying cut (No. 224) is taken from a rather well- 
known illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, " The Luttrell 
Psalter," and furnishes a good representation of the lady's char of that 
period. It will be seen that it is a very cumbrous vehicle, drawn by a 
long team of horses, with two drivers or postilions. It is evidently 
filled with ladies, some of whose heads are seen through the windows. 
We may suppose, therefore, that the char was kept for the conveyance 
of the female portion of the family. 

The horse was, after a man's own limbs, his primary agent of loco- 
motion. Perhaps no animal is so intimately mixed up with the history 
of mankind as the horse— certainly none more so. Our Anglo-Saxon 
forefathers travelled much on foot, and, as far as we know, the great 
importance in which the horse was held in the Middle Ages in this 




No. 224. — A Lady's Char of the Fourteenth Century. 



part of the world, began with feudalism, and the best and most cele- 
brated breed of horses in Europe, from the earliest ages of chivalry, was 
brought from the East. The heroes of early romance and poetry are gener- 
ally mounted on Arab steeds, and these have often the additional merit of 
having been won by conquest from the Saracens. In the thirteenth 
century they were obtained from Turkey and Greece ; and at a 
later period from Barbary. France, also, had its native breed, which 
enjoyed a high reputation for many valuable qualities, and especially 
for its fierceness in war. Gascony, and, on the other side of the Spanish 
frontier, Castile and Aquitaine, were much celebrated for their horses. 
The Gascons prided themselves much on their horses, and they dis- 
played this pride sometimes in a very singular manner. In 11 72, Ray- 
mond de Venous, Count of Toulouse, held a grand cour fileniere, and, 
as a display of ostentation, caused thirty of his horses to be burnt in 



328 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

presence of the assembly. It was a fine example of the barbarity of 
feudalism. At the provincial synod of Auch, held in 1303, it was 
ordered that archdeacons, when they made their diocesan circuits, 
should not go with more than five horses, which shows that the Gas- 
con clergy were in the habit of making a great display of cavalry. It 
appears that at this early period the best horses were imported into 
England from Bordeaux. It may be mentioned, in passing, that the 
male horse only was ridden by knights or people of any distinction, and 
that to ride a mare was always looked upon as a degradation. This 
seems to have been an old Teutonic prejudice, perhaps a religious 
superstition. 

The kinds of horses most commonly mentioned in the feudal ages are 
named in French (which was the language of feudalism), the pakfroi, or 
palfrey, the dextrier, the roncin, and the sommier. The dextrier, or des- 
trier, was the ordinary war-horse ; the roncin belonged especially to the 
servants and attendants ; and the sommier carried the luggage. Ladies 
especially rode the palfrey. The Orkney Islands appear to have been 
celebrated for their dextriers. The Isle of Man seems also to have pro- 
duced a celebrated breed of horses. Brittany was celebrated for its 
palfreys. The haquen'ee, or hackney, of the Middle Ages, appears to 
have been especially reserved for females. England seems not to have 
been celebrated for its horses in the Middle Ages, and the horses of 
value possessed by the English kings and great nobles were, in almost 
all cases, imported from the Continent. The ordinary prices of horses 
in England in the reign of Edward I., was from one to ten pounds, but 
choice animals were valued much higher. When St Louis returned to 
France from his captivity, the abbot of Cluny presented to the king and 
the queen each a horse, the value of which Joinville estimates at five 
hundred livres, equivalent to about four hundred pounds of our present 
English money. These must have been horses which possessed some 
very extraordinary qualities, as the price is quite out of proportion to 
that of other horses at the same period. In the charters published by 
M. Guerard, horses are valued at forty sols, and at three pounds at 
various periods during the eleventh century. In 1202, two roncins are 
valued at thirty sols each, another at forty, two at fifty each and two at 
sixty ; the roncin of an arbalester at sixty sols ; a sommier, or baggage- 



HORSES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 329 

horse, at forty sols ; and three horses, of which the kind is not specified, 
at six pounds each. These appear to have been the ordinary prices at 
that period ; for, though prices of horses are mentioned as high as thirty- 
four, thirty-five, and forty pounds, these were only possessed or given 
as presents by kings. The value of horses went on rising through the 
thirteenth century, until Philippe le Hardi found it necessary to fix it by 
an ordonnance, which limited the price which any man, whether lay or 
clergy, however rich, might give for a palfrey, to sixty pounds toumois, 
and that to be given by a squire for a roncin to twenty pounds. The 
prices of horses appear not to have varied much from this during the 
fourteenth century. In the middle of the century following the prices 
rose much higher. 

Of the colours of horses, in the Middle Ages, white seems to have 
been prized most highly, and after that dapple-gray and bay or chestnut. 
The same colours were in favour among the Arabs. One of the poets 
of the thirteenth century, Jean Bodel, describes a choice Gascon horse 
as follows — "His hair," he says, "was more shining than the plumage 
of a peacock j his head was lean, his eye gray like a falcon, his breast 
large and square, his crupper broad, his thigh round, and his rump 
tight. They who saw it said that they had never seen a handsomer 
animal." The food given to horses in the Middle Ages seems to have 
been much the same as at the present day. In 1435 the queen of 
Navarre gave carrots to her horses. Although the mediaeval knight 
resembled the Arab in his love for his horse, yet the latter was often 
treated hardly and even cruelly, and the practice of horsemanship was 
painful to the rider and to the horse. To be a skilful rider was a first- 
rate accomplishment. One of the feats of horsemanship practised ordi- 
narily was to jump into the saddle in full armour — 

No foot Fitzjames in stirrup staid, 
No grasp upon the saddle laid ; 
But wreath'd his left hand in the mane, 
And lightly bounded from the plain. 

Though horse-races are mentioned in two of the earliest of the French 
metrical romances, those of " Renaud de Montauban," and of "Aiol," 
they seem never to have been practised in France until very recently, 
when they were introduced in imitation of the English fashion. Post- 



330 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

horses were first introduced in France during the reign of Henry II., 
that is, in the middle of the sixteenth century. 

Great importance was placed in the breeding of horses in the Middle 
Ages. Charlemagne, in the regulations for the administration of his 
private domains, gives particular directions for the care of his brood- 
mares and stallions. Normandy appears to have been famous for its 
studs of horses in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and documents 
show that the monks took good care rigorously to exact the tithes of 
their produce to stock the monastic stables. Traces of the existence of 
similar studs are found also in other parts of France. At this time a 
horse was considered the handsomest present that could be made by a 
king or a great lord, and horses were often given as bribes. Thus, in 
1227, the monks of the abbey of Troarn obtained from* Guillaume de 
Tilli the ratification of a grant made to them by his father in consider- 
ation of a gift to him of a mark of silver and a palfrey ; and the monks 
of St Evroul, in 1165, purchased a favour of the English Earl of Glou- 
cester by presenting to him two palfreys estimated to be worth twenty 
pounds of money of Anjou. Kings frequently received horses as pre- 
sents from their subjects. The widow of Herbert du Mesnil gave King 
John of England a palfrey to obtain the wardship of her children ; and 
one Geoffrey Fitz-Richard gave the same monarch a palfrey for a con- 
cession in the forest of Beaulieu. In 11 72, Raimond, Count of St 
Gilles, having become the vassal of the King of England, engaged to pay 
him an annual tribute of a hundred marks of silver, or ten dextriers, 
worth at least ten marks each. The English studs appear already in the 
thirteenth century to have become remarkable for their excellence. 

Travelling, in the Middle Ages, was assisted by few, if any, conveniences, 
and was dangerous as well as difficult. As I have already stated, the 
insecurity of the roads made it necessary for travellers to associate to- 
gether for protection, as well as for company, for their journeys were slow 
and dull ; and as they were often obliged to halt for the night where 
there was little or no accommodation, they had to carry a good deal of 
luggage. An inn was often the place of rendezvous for travellers start- 
ing upon the same journey. It is thus that Chaucer represents himself 
as having taken up his quarters at the Tabard, in Southwark, prepara- 
tory to undertaking the journey to Canterbury ; and at night there 



TRA VELLING-PAR TIES. 3 3 1 



arrived a company of travellers bent to the same destination, who had 

gathered together as they came along the road — 

At night was come into that hostelrie 
Wei nyne and twenty in a companye, 
Of sondry folk, by aventure ifalle 
In felaschipe. — Cant. Tales, 1. 23. 

Chaucer obtains the consent of the rest to his joining their fellowship, 
which, as he describes it, consisted of persons most dissimilar in class 
and character. The host of the Tabard joins the party also, and it is 
agreed that, to enliven the journey, each in his turn shall tell a story 
on the way. They then sup at a common table, drink wine, and go to 
bed; and at daybreak they start on their journey. They travelled 
evidently at a slow pace ; and at Boughton-under-Blee — a village a few 
miles from Canterbury — a canon and his yeoman, after some hard 
riding, overtake them, and obtain permission to join the company. It 
would seem that the company had passed a night somewhere on the 
road, probably at Rochester, — and we should, perhaps, have had an 
account of their reception and departure, had the collection of the 
"Canterbury Tales" been completed by their author, — and that the 
canon sent his yeoman to watch for any company of travellers who 
should halt at the hostelry, that he might join them, but he had been 
too late to start with them, and had, therefore, ridden hard to overtake 
them — 

His yeman eek was ful of curtesye, 
And seid, " Sires, now in the morwe tyde 
Oat of your ostelry I saugh you ryde, 
And warned heer my lord and soverayn, 
Which that to ryden with yow is ful fayn, 
For his disport ; he loveth daliaunce." 

— Cant. Tales, 1. 12,515. 

A little farther on, on the road, the Pardoner is called upon to tell his 
tale. He replies — 

"It schal be doon," quod he, "and that anoon. 
But first," quod he, "here, at this ale-stake, 
I will both drynke and byten on a cake." 

—Ibid., 1. 13,735. 

The road-side ale-house, where drink was sold to travellers and to 
the country people of the neighbourhood, was scattered over the more 
populous and frequented parts of the country from an early period, and 



332 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



is not unfrequently alluded to in popular writers. It was indicated by 
a stake projecting from the house, on which some object was hung for 




No. 225. — A Pilgrim at the Ale-Stake. 

a sign, and is sometimes represented in the illuminations of manuscripts. 

Our cut No. 225, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century, in 

the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. 
iv.), represents one of those ale-houses, 
at which a pilgrim is halting to take 
refreshment. The keeper of the ale- 
house, in this instance, is a woman, the 
ale-wife, and the stake appears to be a 
besom. In another (No. 226), taken 
from a manuscript copy of the "Moral- 
ization of Chess," by Jacques de Ces- 
soles, of the earlier part of the fifteenth 
century (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), a round 
sign is suspended on the stake, with a 
figure in the middle, which may possibly 

be intended to represent a bush. A garland was not unfrequently hung 

upon the stake ; on this Chaucer, describing his " sompnour," says : — ■ 

A garland had he set upon his head, 

As gret as it were for an ale-stake. — Cant. Tales, 1. 688. 

A bush was still more common, and gave rise to the proverb that 
" good wine needs no bush," that is, it will be easily found out with- 
out any sign to direct people to it. A bush suspended to the sign of 
a tavern will be seen in our cut (No. 234) a little farther on. 

Lydgate composed his poem of the " Story of Thebes," as a con- 




No. 226. — The Road-side Inn. 



TRA VELLING-PARTIES. 



333 



tinuation of Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales," and in the prologue he 
describes himself as arriving in Canterbury, while the pilgrims were 
there, and accidentally taking up his lodging at the same inn. He 
thus seeks and obtains permission to be one of the fellowship, and re- 
turns from Canterbury in their company. Our cut No. 227, taken 
from a fine manuscript of Lydgate's poem (MS. Reg. 18 D. ii.), repre- 
sents the pilgrims leaving Canterbury, and is not only a good illustra- 




No. 227. — The Canterbury Pilgrims. 



tion of the practice of travelling in companies, but it furnishes us with 
a characteristic picture of a mediaeval town. 

This readiness of travellers to join company with each other was not 
confined to any class of society, but was general among them all, and 
not unfrequently led to the formation of friendships and alliances be- 
tween those who had previously been strangers to one another. In 
the interesting romance of " Blonde of Oxford," composed in the 
thirteenth century, when Jean of Dammartin came to seek his fortune 
in England, and was riding from Dover to London, attended by a 
faithful servant, he overtook the Earl of Oxford, who was on his way to 



334 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

London, with a numerous retinue of armed followers. Jean, having 

learned from the earl's followers who he was, introduced himself to 

him, and was finally taken into his service. Subsequently, in the same 

romance, Jean of Dammartin, returning to England, takes up his lodging 

in a handsome hotel in London, and while his man Robin puts the 

horses in the stable, he walks out into the street, and sees a large 

company who had just arrived, consisting of squires, servants, knights, 

clerks, priests, serving-lads (gar(ons), and men who attended the 

baggage-horses (sommiers). Jean asked one of the squires who they 

all were, what was their business, and where they were going; and 

was informed that it was the Earl of Gloucester, who had come to 

London about some business, and was going on the morrow to Oxford, 

to be married to the Lady Blonde, the object of Jean's affections. Next 

morning the earl began his journey at daybreak, and Jean and his 

servant, who were mounted ready, joined the company. There was 

so little unusual in this, that the intruders seem for a while not to 

have been noticed, until at length the earl observed Jean, and began 

to interrogate him : " Friend," said he, " you are welcome ; what is 

your name ? " — 

Amis, bien fustes vene, 
Coment fu vostre non pele? 

— Romance of Blonde, 1. 2627. 

Jean gave himself an assumed name, said he was a merchant, and 
offered to sell the earl his horse, but they could not agree upon the terms. 
They continued conversing together during the rest of the journey. As 
they proceeded they encountered a shower of rain, which wetted the earl, 
who was fashionably and thinly clothed. Jean smiled at the impatience 
with which he seemed to bear this mishap, and when asked to tell the 
cause of his mirth, said, " If I were a rich man like you, I should always 
carry a house with me, so that I could go into it when the rain came, 
and not get my clothes dirtied and wet." The earl and his followers set 
Jean. down for a fool, and looked forward to be made merry by him. 
Soon afterwards they came to the banks of a river, into which the earl 
rode, without first ascertaining if it were fordable, and he was carried 
away by the stream, and only saved from drowning by a fisherman in a 
boat. The rest of the company found a ford, where they passed the 



TRAVELLING ON FOOT. 



335 



river without danger. The earl's clothes had now been completely 
soaked in the water, and, as his baggage-horses were too far in the rear, 
he made one of his knights strip, and give him his dry clothes, and left 
him to make the best of his wet ones. " If I were as rich, and had so 
many men as you," said Jean, laughing again, "I would not be ex- 
posed to misfortunes of this kind, for I would carry a bridge with me." 
The earl and his retinue were merry again, at what they supposed to be 
the folly of their travelling companion. They were now near Oxford, 
and Jean took his leave of the Earl of Gloucester. We learn, in the 
course of the story, that all that Jean meant by the house, was that the 
earl ought to have had at hand a good cloak and cape to cover his fine 
clothes in case of rain ; and that, by the bridge, he intended to intimate 
that he ought to have sent some of his men to ascertain the depth of 
the river before he went into it ! 

These illustrations of the manner and inconveniences of travelling 
apply more especially to those who could travel on horseback ; but the 
difficulties were still greater for the numerous class of people who were 
obliged to travel on foot, and who could rarely make sure of reaching, 
at the end of each day's journey, a place where they could obtain a 
lodging. They, moreover, had also to take with them a certain quantity 
of baggage. Foot-travellers seem to have had sometimes a mule or a 
donkey, to carry luggage, or for the 
weak women and children. Every 
one will remember the mediaeval 
fable of the old man and his ass, in 
which a father and his son have the 
one ass between them. In mediaeval 
illuminations representing the flight 
into Egypt, Joseph is often repre- 
sented as walking, while the Virgin 
and Child ride upon an ass which 
he is leading. The party of foot- 
travellers in our cut No. 228, taken 




No. 228. — Travellers on Foot. 



from a manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 
2. B. vii.), forms part of a group representing the relatives of Thomas 
Beckett driven into exile by King Henry II. ; they are making their way 



336 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

to the sea-shore on foot, perhaps to show that they were not of very 

high condition in life. 

In Chaucer, it is a matter of surprise that the " chanoun " had so 

little luggage that he carried only a male, or portmanteau, on his 

horse's crupper, and even that was doubled up (tweyfold) on account of 

its emptiness : — 

A male tweyfold on his croper lay, 

It seemed that he caried litel array, 

Al light for somer rood this worthy man. 

— Cant. Tales, 1. 12,494. 

On the contrary, in the romance of " Berte," when the heroine is left 
to wander in the solitary forest, the writer laments that she had "neither 
pack-horse laden with coffers, nor clothes folded up in males," which 
were the ordinary accompaniments of travellers of any consequence : — 

N'i ot sommier a coffres ne dras trousses en male. 

— Roman de Berte, p. 42. 

A traveller, indeed, had many things to carry with him. He took pro- 
visions with him, or was obliged, at times, to reckon on what he could 
kill, or obtain undressed, and hence he was obliged to carry cooking 
apparatus with him. He carried flint and steel to strike a light, and be 
able to make a fire, as he might have to bivouac in a solitary place, or 
in the midst of a forest. In the romance of " Garin le Loherain," when 
the Count Begues of Belin finds himself benighted in the forest, he pre- 
pares for passing the night comfortably, and, as a matter of course, 
draws out his flint (fusil), and lights a fire — 

Et li quens est desous l'arbre rame ; 
Prent son fusil, s'a le fu alume, 
Grant et plenier, merveilleus embrase. 

— Garin le Loherain, ii. p. 231. 

The traveller also often carried materials for laying a bed, if benighted 
on the road ; and he had, above all, to take sufficient money with him 
in specie. He sometimes also carried a portable tent with him, or 
materials for making one. In the English romance of " Ipomydon " 
(Weber, ii. 343), the maiden messenger of the heiress of Calabria carries 
her tent with her, and usually lodges at night under it — 

As they rode by the way, 

The mayde to the dwarfe gan saye, 



HIGHWA Y ROBBERIES. 



337 



" Undo my tente, and sette it faste, 
For here a vvhyle I wille me ryste." 
Mete and drynke bothe they had, 
That was fro home with them lad. 

It may be remarked that in this story the first thought of every gallant 
knight who passes is to treat the lady with violence. All these incum- 
brances, combined with the badness of the roads, rendered travelling 
slow — of which we might quote abundant examples. At the end of the 
twelfth century, it took Giraldus Cambrensis four days to travel from 
Powisland to Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury. The roads, too, 
were infested with robbers and banditti, and travellers were only safe in 
their numbers, and in being sufficiently well armed to repel attacks. In 







No. 229. — Plundering a Traveller. 

the accompanying cut (No. 229), from a manuscript of the fourteenth 
century (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), a traveller is taking his repose under a 
tree, — it is, perhaps, intended to be understood that he is passing the 
night in a wood, — while he is plundered by robbers, who are here jokingly 
represented in the forms of monkeys. While one is emptying his 
" male " or box, the other is carrying off his girdle, with the large pouch 
attached to it, in which, no doubt, the traveller carried his money, and 
perhaps his eatables. The insecurity of the roads in the Middle Ages 
was, indeed, very great, for not only were the forests filled with bands 
of outlaws, who stripped all who fell into their hands, but the knights 
and landed gentry, and even noblemen, took to the highways not un- 



338 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



frequently, and robbed unscrupulously. Moreover, they built their 
castles near difficult passes, or by a river where there was a bridge or 
ford, and where, therefore, they commanded it, and there they levied 
arbitrary taxes on all who passed, and, on the slightest attempt at resist- 
ance, plundered the traveller of his property, and put him to death or 
threw him into their dungeons. Incidents of this kind are common in 
the mediaeval romances and stories. Piers de Bruville, in the history 
of Fulke Fitz-Warine, may be mentioned as an example of this class of 
marauders. "At that time," says the story, "there was a knight in the 
country who was called Piers de Bruville. This Piers used to collect 
all the sons of gentlemen of the country who were wild, and other ribald 
people, and used to go about the country, and slew and robbed loyal 
people, merchants, and others." In the fabliau of the " Chevalier au 
Barizel," we are told of a great baron who issued continually from his 
strong castle to plunder the country around. " He watched so closely the 
roads, that he slew all the pilgrims, and plundered the merchants ; 
many of them he brought to mishap. He spared neither clergy nor 
monk, recluse, hermit, nor canon ; and the nuns and lay-sisters he 
caused to live in open shame, when he had them in his power ; and he 
spared neither dames nor maids, of whatever rank or class, whether 
poor or rich, or well educated or simple, but he put them all to open 
shame" (Barbazan, i. 209). 

The roads, in the Middle Ages, appear also to have been infested 
with beggars of all descriptions, many of whom were cripples, and persons 
mutilated in the most revolting manner, the result of feudal wantonness 
and of feudal vengeance. Our cut No. 230, also furnished by a manu- 
script of the fourteenth century, represents a very deformed cripple, 

whose means of locomotion are 
rather curious. The beggar and 
the cripple, too, were often only 
robbers in disguise, who waited 
their opportunity to attack single 
passengers, or who watched 
to give notice to comrades of 

No. 230. — A Cripple. 

■ the approach of richer convoys. 
The mediaeval popular stories give abundant instances of robbers and 




HOSPITALITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



339 



others disguising themselves as beggars and cripples. Blindness, also, 
was common among these objects of commiseration in the Middle 
Ages ; often, as in the case of mutilation of other kinds, the result of 
deliberate violence. The same manuscript I have so often quoted 
(MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), has furnished our cut No. 231, representing a 
blind man and his dog. 

It will be easily understood, that when travelling was beset with so 
many inconveniences, private hospitality would be looked upon as one 
of the first of virtues, for people were often obliged to have recourse to 
it, and it was seldom refused. In the country every man's door was 
open to the stranger who came from a distance, unless his appearance 




^^^^^^^^'^0^^^^ 



No. 231.— A Blind Man and Dog 



were suspicious or threatening. In this there was a mutual advantage ; 
for the guest generally brought with him news and information, which 
was highly valued at a time when communication between one place and 
another was so slow and uncertain. Hence the first questions put to a 
stranger were, whence he had come, and what news he had brought with 
him. The old romances and tales furnish us with an abundance of 
examples of the wide-spread feeling of hospitality that prevailed during 
the Middle Ages. Even in the middle and lower classes, people were 
always ready to share their meals with the stranger who asked for a 
lodging. The denial of such hospitality was looked upon as exceptional 
and disgraceful, and was only met with from misers and others who 
were regarded as almost without the pale of society. The early metrical 



34o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



story of "The Hermit," the foundation of ParnelPs poem, gives us 
examples of the different sorts of hospitality with which travellers met. 
The hermit and his companion began their travels in a wild country, 
and at the end of their first day's journey they were obliged to take up 
their lodgings with another hermit, who gave them the best welcome he 
could, and shared his provisions with them. The next evening they 
came to a city, where everybody shut his door against them, because 
they were poor, till at length, weary and wet with rain, they sat down 
on the stone steps of a great mansion ; but the host was an usurer, and 
refused to receive into his house men who promised him so little profit. 
Yet at length, to escape their importunities, he allowed them to enter 
the yard, and sleep under a staircase, where his maid threw them some 
straw to lie upon, but neither offered them refreshment, except some of 
the refuse of the table, nor allowed them to go to a fire to dry their 
clothes. The next evening they sought their lodging in a large abbey, 
where the monks received them with great hospitality, and gave them 
plenty to eat and drink. On the fourth day they came to another town, 
where they went to the house of a rich and honest burgher, who also 
received them with all the marks of hospitality. Their host washed 
their feet, and gave them plenty to eat and drink, and they were com- 
fortably lodged for the night. 

It would not be difficult to illustrate all the incidents of this story by 
anecdotes of mediaeval life. The traveller who sought a lodging, with- 
out money to pay for it, even in private houses, was not always well 
received. In the fabliau of the "Butcher of Abbeville" (Barbazan, iv. 
i), the butcher, returning from the market of Oisemont, is overtaken by 
night at the small town of Bailleuil. He determined to stop for the 
night there, and, seeing a poor woman at her door, at the entrance of 
the town, he inquired where he could ask for a night's lodging, and she 
recommended him to the priest, as the only person in the town who had 
wine in his cellar. The butcher accordingly repaired to the priest's 
house, where he found that ecclesiastic sitting on the sill of his door, and 
asked him to give him a lodging for the sake of charity. The priest, 
who thought that there was nothing to be gained from him, refused, 
telling him he would find plenty of people in the town who could give 
him a bed. As the butcher was leaving the town, irritated by this in- 



THE BUTCHER AND THE ABBOT. 341 

hospitable reception, he encountered a flock of sheep, which he learned 
were the property of the priest ; whereupon, selecting the fattest of them, 
he dexterously stole it away unperceived, and, returning with it into the 
town, he went to the priest's door, found him just closing his house, for 
it was nightfall, and again asked him for lodging. The priest asked 
him who he was, and whence he came. He replied that he had been 
to the market at Oisemont, and bought a sheep ; that he was overtaken 
by night, and sought a lodging; and that, as it was no great considera- 
tion to him, he intended to kill his sheep, and share it with his host. 
The temptation was too great for the greedy priest, and he now received 
the butcher into his house, treated him with great respect, and had a bed 
made for him in his hall. Now the priest had — as was common with 
the Catholic priesthood — a concubine and a maid-servant, and they all 
regaled themselves on the butcher's sheep. Before the guest left next 
morning, he contrived to sell the sheep's skin and wool for certain con- 
siderations severally to the concubine and to the maid, and, after his 
departure, their rival claims led to a quarrel, and even to a battle. While 
the priest, on his return from the service of matins, was labouring to 
appease the combatants, his shepherd entered, with the information that 
his best sheep had been stolen from his flock, and an examination of 
the skin led to the discovery of the trick which had been played upon 
him — a punishment, as we are told, which he well merited by his in- 
hospitable conduct. A Latin story of the thirteenth century may be 
coupled with the foregoing anecdote. There was an abbot who was 
very miserly and inhospitable, and he took care to give all the offices in 
the abbey to men of his own character. This was especially the case 
with the monk who had the direction of the hospitium, or guest-house. 
One day came a minstrel to ask for a lodging, but he met with an un- 
friendly reception, was treated only with black bread and water to drink, 
and was shown to a hard bed of straw. Minstrels were not usually 
treated in this inhospitable manner, and our guest resolved to be revenged. 
He left the abbey next morning, and a little way on his journey he met 
the abbot, who was returning home from a short absence. " God bless 
you, good abbot ! " he said, " for the noble hospitality which has been 
shown to me this night by your monks. The master of your guest- 
house treated me with the choicest wines, and placed rich dishes on the 



342 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

table for me in such numbers, that I would not attempt to count them ; 
and when I came away this morning, he gave me a pair of shoes, a girdle, 
and a knife." The abbot hurried home in a furious rage, summoned 
the offending brother before a chapter, accused him of squandering away 
the property of the monastery, caused him to be flogged and dismissed 
.from his office, and appointed in his place another, in whose inhospit- 
able temper he could place entire confidence. 

These cases of want of hospitality were, however, exceptions to the 
general rule. A stranger was usually received with great kindness, each 
class of society, of course, more or less by its own class, though, under 
such circumstances, much less distinction of class was made than we 
might suppose. The aristocratic class, which included what we should 
now call the gentry, sought hospitality in the nearest castle ; for a castle, 
as a matter of pride and ostentation, was, more or less, like an abbey, 
a place of hospitality for everybody. This pride was often carried to a 
very extraordinary extent, an example of which is furnished by the old 
Shropshire history of the Fitz-Warines of Whittington. We are told that 
Fulke Fitz-Warine turned the king's highway through the middle of the 
hall of his manor of Alleston, in order that no traveller might have an 
excuse for passing by without partaking of his liberality.* Among the 
richer and more refined classes, great care was taken to show proper 
courtesy to strangers, according to their rank. In the case of a knight, 
the lord of the house and his lady, with their damsels, led him into a 
private room, took off his armour, and often his clothes, and gave him a 
change of apparel, after careful ablution. A scene of this kind is repre- 
sented in our next cut (No. 232), taken from a manuscript of the romance 
of " Lancelot," of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris 
(No. 6956). The host or his lady sometimes washed the stranger's feet 
themselves. Thus, in the fabliau quoted above, when the hermit and 
his companion sought a lodging at the house of a bourgeois, they were 
received without question, and their hosts washed their feet, and then 
gave them plenty to eat and drink, and a bed — 

* " Cesti Fouke fust bon viaundour e large ; e fesoit turner le real chemin parmi sa 
sale a soun maner de Alleston, pur ce que nul estrannge y dust passer s'il n'avoit 
viaunde, ou herbergage, ou autre honour ou bien du suen." — The Histo7-y of Fulke 
FitZ' Warine, edited for the Warton Club, by Thomas Wright, p. 1 78. 



THE PRACTICE OF HOSPITALITY. 



343 



Li hoste orent leur piez lavez, 
Bien sont peu et abreviez ; 
Jusqu'au jor a ese se jurent. 

We might easily multiply extracts illustrative of this hospitable feeling, 
as it existed and was practised from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. 
Our cut No. 233, taken from a manuscript of the earlier part of the 
fourteenth century (MS. Harl. No. 1527), is another representation of 
the reception of a stranger in this hospitable manner. In the " Roman 
de la Violette " (p. 233), when its hero, Gerard, sought a lodging at a 
castle, he was received with the greatest hospitality ; the lord of the 
castle led him into the great hall, and there disarmed him, furnished 
him with a rich mantle, and caused him to be bathed and washed. In 
the same romance (p. 237), when Gerard arrives at the little town of 





No. 232. — Receiving a Stranger. 



No. 233. — Receiving a Guest. 



Mouzon, he goes to the house of a widow to ask for a night's lodging, 
and is received with the same welcome. His horse is taken into a stable, 
and carefully attended to, while the lady labours to keep him in conver- 
sation until supper is ready, after which a good bed is made for him, and 
they all retire to rest. The comforts, however, which could be offered 
to the visitor, consisted often chiefly in eating and drinking. People had 
few spare chambers, especially furnished ones, and, in the simplicity of 
mediaeval manners, the guests were obliged to sleep either in the same 
room as the family, or, more usually, in the hall, where beds were made 
for them on the floor or on the benches. " Making a bed " was a phrase 
true in its literal sense, and the bed made consisted still of a heap of 
straw, with a sheet or two thrown over it. The host, indeed, could often 
furnish no more than a room of bare walls and floor as a protection 



344 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



from the weather, and the guest had to rely as much upon his own 
resources for his personal comforts, as if he had had to pass the night in 
the midst of a wild wood. Moreover the guests, however numerous and 
though strangers to each other, were commonly obliged to sleep together 
indiscriminately in the same room. 

The old Anglo-Saxon feeling, that the duration of the chance visit of 
a stranger should be limited to the third day, seems still to have pre- 
vailed. A Latin rhyme, printed in the "Reliquiae Antiques " (i. 91), 
tells us — 

Verum dixit anus, quod piscis olet triduanus ; 

Ejus de more simili fcetet hospes odore. 

In towns'the hospitality of the burghers was not always given gratis, 
for it was a common custom, even among the richer merchants, to make 
a profit by receiving guests. These letters of lodgings were distinguished 
from the innkeepers, or hostelers, by the title of herbergeors, or people 
who gave harbour to strangers, and in the larger towns they were sub- 
jected to municipal regulations. The great barons and knights were in 
the custom of taking up their lodgings with these herbergeors, rather 
than "going to the public hostels; and thus a sort of relationship was 
formed between particular nobles or kings and particular burghers, on 
the strength of which the latter adopted the arms of their habitual 
lodgers as their signs. These herbergeors practised great extortions 
upon their accidental guests, and they appear to have adopted various 
artifices to allure them to their houses. These extortions are the 
subject of a very curious Latin poem of the thirteenth century, entitled 
" Peregrinus " (the Traveller), the author of which describes the arts 
employed to allure the traveller, and the extortions to which he was 
subjected. It appears that persons were employed to look out for the 
arrival of strangers, and that they entered into conversation with them, 
pretended to discover that they came from the same part of the country, 
and then, as taking especial interest in their fellow-countrymen, recom- 
mended them to lodgings. These tricks of the burghers who let their 
lodgings for hire are alluded to in other mediaeval writers. It appears, 
also, that both in these lodging-houses and in the public inns, it was 
not an unusual practice to draw people into contracting heavy bills, 
which they had not the money to pay, and then to seize their bag- 



INNS IN THE MID DIE AGES. 



345 



gage and even their clothes, to several times the amount of the 
debt. 

Our cut No. 234, taken from an illumination in the unique manu- 




No. 234. — A Hostelry at Night. 

script of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (fifteenth century), in the 

Hunterian Library at Glasgow, represents the exterior and the interior 

of a public hostel or inn. Without, we 

see the sign, and the bush suspended to 

it, and a company of travellers arriving ; 

within, the bed-chambers are represented, 

and they illustrate not only the practice of 

lodging a number of persons in the same 

bedroom, but also that of sleeping in a 

state of perfect nudity. Our next cut (No. \\ n 

235) is a picture of a mediaeval tapster; it ^— [^ 

is taken from one of the carved seats, or 

misereres, in the fine parish church of 

' x No. 235. — A Mediaeval lapster. 

Ludlow, in Shropshire. It will, probably, 

be remarked that the size of the tapster's jug is rather disproportionate 




346 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

to that of his barrel ; but mediaeval artists often set perspective and 

relative proportions at defiance. 

The tavern in the Middle Ages seems to have been the usual scene of 

a large portion of the ordinary life of the lower class of society, and even 

partially of the middle class, and its influence was certainly very injurious 

on the manners and character of the people. Even the women, as we 

learn from a number of contemporary songs and stories, spent much of 

their time drinking and gossiping in taverns, where great latitude was 

afforded for carrying on low intrigues. The tavern was, in fact, the 

general rendezvous of those who sought amusement, of whatever kind. 

In the "Millere's Tale," in Chaucer, Absolon, "that joly was and gay," 

and who excelled as a musician, frequented the taverns and "brewhouses," 

meaning apparently the lesser public-houses where they only sold ale, 

to exhibit his skill — 

In al the toun nas brewhous ne taverne 

That he ne visited with his solas, 

Ther as that any gaylard tapster was. — Cant. Tales, 1. 3334. 

And Chaucer's friar was well acquainted with all the taverns in the towns 

he visited — 

He knew wel the tavernes in every toun, 

And every osteller or gay tapstere. — Ibid. , 1. 240. 

The tavern was especially the haunt of gamblers, who were encouraged 
by the "tapster," because they brought him his most profitable customers. 
As I have said before, when his customers had no money, the taverner 
took their articles of dress for payment, and in doing this he added the 
profits of the money-lender to those of the taverner. In the fabliau of 
" Gautier d'Aupais," the young prodigal Gautier, hungry and penniless, 
arrives towards evening at a tavern, where he finds a number of guests 
enjoying themselves. His horse is taken to the stable, and he joins the 
guests, but when the moment comes for paying, and the taverner de- 
mands three sols, he is induced in his desperation to try his luck at the 
dice. Instead, however, of retrieving his fortunes, he loses his horse 
and his robe, and is obliged to return to his father's house on foot and 

in his shirt — 

Si a perdu sa robe et son corant destrier ; 
En pure sa chemise l'en convint reperier. 

The story of Cortois d'Arras, in the fabliau in "Barbazan" (i. 355), is 



INNS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



347 



somewhat similar. Young Cortois, also a prodigal, obtains from his 
father a large sum of money as a compensation for all his claims on the 
paternal property, and with this throws himself upon the world. As he 
proceeded, he heard the tavern-boy calling out from the door, " Here is 
good wine of Soissons, acceptable to everybody ! here credit is given 
to everybody, and no pledges taken ! " with much more in the same 
style. Cortois determined to stop at the tavern. " Host," said he, 
" how much do you sell your wine the septier (a measure of two gallons)? 
and when was it tapped ? " He was told that it had been fresh tapped 
that morning, and that the price was six deniers. The host then goes 
'on to display his accommodations. "Within are all sorts of comforts; 
painted chambers, and soft beds, raised high with white straw, and made 




No. 236 —The Ale-Wife's End. 

soft with feathers ; here within is hostel for love affairs, and when bed- 
time comes you will have pillows of violets to hold your head more 
softly • and, finally, you will have electuaries and rose-water, to wash 
your mouth and your face." Cortois orders a gallon of wine, and im- 
mediately afterwards a belle demoiselle makes her appearance, for such 
were in these times reckoned among the attractions of the tavern. It 
is soon arranged between the lady and the landlord that she is to be 
Cortois' chamber-companion, and they all begin drinking together, the 
taverner persuading his guest that he owes this choice wine to the lady's 
love. They then go to carouse in the garden, and they finish by plunder- 



348 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



ing him of his money, and he is obliged to leave his clothes in pledge 
for the payment of his tavern expenses. The ale-wife was especially 
looked upon as a model of extortion and deceit, for she cheated un- 
blushingly, both in money and measure, and she is pointed out in 
popular literature as an object of hatred and of satire. Our cut No. 
236, also furnished by one of the carved misereres in Ludlow Church, 
represents a scene from Doomsday : a demon is bearing away the de- 
ceitful ale-wife, who carries nothing with her but her gay head-dress and 
her false measure ; he is going to throw her into " hell-mouth," while 
another demon is reading her offences as entered in his roll, and a third 
is playing on the bagpipes by way of welcome. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Education. — Literary Men and Scribes. — Punishments : the Stocks; the 

Gallows. 

I PUT together in a short chapter two parts of my subject which 
may at the first glance seem somewhat discordant, but which, I 
think, on further consideration, will be found to be rather closely re- 
lated — they are, education and punishment for offences against the law. 
It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that, as education becomes more 
general and better regulated, if the necessity of punishment is not en- 
tirely taken away, its cruelty is greatly diminished. 

During the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, there was 
certainly a general feeling of the necessity of extending and improving 
education. It was during this period that our great universities rose 
into existence and flourished, and these schools, which provided for the 
higher development of the mind, had their thousands of students, in- 
stead of the hundreds who frequent them at the present day. But the 
need of some provision for education was felt most in regard to that less 
elevated degree of instruction which was required for the more youthful 
mind, — in fact, it was long before the people of the Middle Ages could 
be persuaded that literary education was of any use at all, except for 
those who were to be made great scholars ; the clergy itself, unfortunately, 
did not see the necessity of popular education, and although the schools 
in parish churches were long continued, they appear to have been con- 
ducted more and more with negligence. It was the mercantile class in 
the towns which made the first step in advance, by the establishment of 
those foundations which have continued to the present time under the 
name of grammar-schools. These schools are traced back to the thir- 
teenth century, when the merchant-guilds, by whom they were founded, 



35 o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



began to assume a greater degree of importance, and they were usually 
intended for the general benefit of the town, but were combined with 
an ecclesiastical establishment for performing services for the souls of 
the members of the guilds, in consequence of which, at the Reformation, 
they became involved in the superstitious uses, and were dissolved and 
refounded in the reign of Edward VI., so that they are now generally 
known as King Edward's foundations. The great object of these 
schools was to give the instruction necessary for admission into the 
universities ; and they were in some degree the answer to an appeal 
which came deeply from the mass of the people, — for there was at this 
time a great spontaneous eagerness for learning, both for the sake of the 
learning itself, and because it was a road to high distinction, which was 
not open to the masses in any other direction. It was a very common 
practice for poor youths to go about the country during vacation-time, 
to beg money to keep them at school during term. In Piers Plough- 
man, among the objects of legitimate charity, the writer enumerates 

money given to — 

Sette scolers to scole, 
Or to som othere craftes. 

—Piers Ploughman, Vis., 1. 4525. 

And in the popular complaints of the burden of taxation, involuntary 
and voluntary, the alms given to poor scholars are often enumerated. 

Independent, however, of what may be considered more especially as 
scholarship, a considerable amount of instruction began now to be 
spread abroad. Reading and writing were becoming much more 
general accomplishments, especially among ladies. Among the amuse- 
ments of leisure hours, indeed, reading began now to occupy a much 
larger place than had been given to it in former ages. Even still, 
popular literature — in the shape of tales and ballads and songs — was, 
in a great measure, communicated orally. But much had been done 
during the fourteenth century towards spreading a taste for literature 
and knowledge ; books were multiplied, and were extensively read ; and 
wants were already arising which soon led the way to that most import- 
ant of modern discoveries, the art of printing. Most gentlemen had 
now a few books, and men of wealth had considerable libraries. The 
wills of this period, still preserved, often enumerate the books possessed 



LIBRARIES. 



35i 



by the testator, and show the high value which was set upon them. 
Many of the illuminations of the fourteenth century present us with 
ingenious, and sometimes fantastic, forms of book-cases and book- 




No. 237. — A Monk at his Studies. 

stands. In our cut No. 237, from a manuscript of metrical relations of 
miracles of the Virgin Mary, now preserved in the library of the city of 
Soissons in France, we have a monk reading, seated before a book- 




No. 238.— A Mediaeval Writer. 

stand, the table of which moves up and down on a screw. Upon this 
table is the inkstand, and below it apparently the inkbottle ; and the 



352 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



table has in itself receptacles for books and paper or parchment. In 
the wall of the room are cupboards, also for the reception of books, as 
we see by one lying loose in them. The man is here seated on a stool; 
but in our cut No. 238, taken from a manuscript in the National 
Library in Paris (No. 6985), he is seated in a chair, with a writing-desk 
attached to it. The scribe holds in his hand a pen, with which he is 
writing, and a knife to scratch the parchment where anything may need 
erasion. The table here is also of a curious construction, and it is 
covered with books. Other examples are found, which show that con- 
siderable ingenuity was employed in varying the forms of such library 
tables. 

The next cut (No. 239) is taken from one of the illuminations to a 
manuscript of the " Moralisation of Chess," by Jacques de Cessoles 
(MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), and is intended as a sort of figurative representa- 
tion of the industrial class of society. It is curious because the figure 
is made to carry some of the principal implements of the 
chief trades or manufactures, and thus gives us their 
ordinary forms. We need only repeat the enumeration 
of these from the text. It is, we are told, a man who 
holds in his right hand a pair of shears (unes forces) ; in 
his left hand he has a great knife (un grant coustel); 
" and he must have at his girdle an inkstand {line escrip- 
toire), and on his ear a pen for writing (el sur Voreille une 
penne a escripre)." Accordingly we see the ink-pot and 
the case for writing implements suspended at the girdle, 
No. 239.— industry, but by accident the pen does not appear on the ear in 
our engraving. It is curious through how great a length 
of time the practice of placing the pen behind the ear has continued 
in use. 

The punishments of the Middle Ages are remarkable, still more so in 
other countries than in England, for a mixture of a small amount of 
feeling of strict justice with a very large proportion of the mere feeling 
of vengeance. Savage ferocity in the commission of crime led to no 
less savage cruelty in retaliation. We have seen, in a former chapter, 
that this was not the sentiment of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, 
whose criminal laws were extremely mild ; but after the Norman Con- 




MEDIAEVAL PUNISHMENTS. 



353 



quest, more barbarous feelings on this subject were brought over from 
the Continent. Imprisonment itself, even before trial, was made fright- 
fully cruel ; the dungeons into which the accused were thrown were 
often filthy holes, sometimes with water running through them, and, as 
a refinement in cruelty, loathsome reptiles were bred in them, and the 
prisoners were not only allowed insufficient food, but they were some- 
times stripped naked, and thrown into prison in that condition. In the 
early English romance of the " Seven Sages " (the text printed by 
Weber), when the emperor was persuaded by his wife to order her step- 
son for execution, he commanded that he should be taken, stripped 
naked of his clothes, and then hanged aloft — 

Quik he het (commanded) his sone take, 

And spoili him of clothes nake, 

And beten him with scourges stronge, 

And afterwards him hegge (high) anhonge (hang). 

— Weber, hi. 21. 

At the intercession of one of the wise men, the youth is respited and 
thrown into prison, but without his clothing ; and when, on a subse- 
quent occasion, he was brought out of prison for judgment, he remained 
still naked. 

Our three cuts which follow illustrate the subject of mediaeval punish- 
ments for crimes and offences. The first (No. 240) is taken from a 




No. 240. — A Party in the Stocks. 



well-known manuscript, in the British Museum, of the fourteenth cen- 
tury (MS. Reg. 10. E. iv.), and represents a monk and a lady, whose 
career has brought them into the stocks, an instrument of punishment 
which has figured in some of our former chapters. It is a very old 



354 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



mode of punishing offenders, and appears, under the Latin name of 
cippus, in early records of the Middle Ages. An old English poem, 
quoted by Mr Halliwell in his Dictionary, from a manuscript at least as 
old as the fifteenth century, recounting the punishments to which some 
misdoers were condemned, says — 

And twenty of thes oder ay in a pytt, 
In stokkes and feturs for to sytt. 

The stocks are frequently referred to in writers of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, and they have not yet become entirely obsolete. 
The Leeds Mercury for April 14, i860, informs us that, " A notorious 
character, named John Gambles, of Stanningley (Pudsey), having been 
convicted some months ago for Sunday gambling and sentenced to sit in 
the stocks for six hours, left the locality, returned lately, and suffered 
his punishment by sitting in the stocks from two till eight o'clock on 
Thursday last." They were formerly employed also, in place of fetters, 
in the inside of prisons — no doubt in order to cause suffering by irk- 
some restraint ; and this was so common that the Latin term cippus, 
and the French ceps, were commonly used to designate the prison itself. 
It may be remarked of these stocks, that they present a peculiarity 
which we may perhaps call a primitive character. They are not sup- 
ported on posts, or fixed in any way to the spot, but evidently hold the 
people who are placed in them in confinement merely by their weight, 
and by the impossibility of walking with them on the legs, especially 
when more persons than one are confined in them. This is probably 
the way in which they were used in prisons. 

A material part of the punishment of the stocks, when employed in 
the open air, consisted, of course, in the public disgrace to which the 
victim was exposed. We might suppose that the shame of such ex- 
posure was keenly felt in the Middle Ages, from the frequency with 
which it was employed. This exposure before the public was, we 
know, originally the chief characteristic of the ducking-stool, for the 
process of ducking the victim in the water seems to have been only 
added to it at a later period. Our cut No. 241, taken from an illumina- 
tion in the unique manuscript of the " Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," in 
the Hunterian Library at Glasgow, represents a person thus exposed to 



MEDIAEVAL PUNISHMENTS. 



355 



the scorn and derision of the populace in the executioner's cart, which 
is drawn through the streets of a town. To be carried about in a cart 
was always considered as especially disgraceful, probably because it was 
thus that malefactors were usually conducted to the gallows, or, in 
France, to the guillotine. In the early romances of the cycle of King 
Arthur, we have an incident which forms an apt illustration of the pre- 
valence of this feeling. Sir Lancelot, when hastening to rescue his 
lady, Queen Guenever, has the misfortune to lose his horse, and, meet- 
ing with a carter, he seizes his cart as the only means of conveyance, 
for the weight of his armour prevented him from walking. Queen 
Guenever and her ladies, from a bay window of the castle of Sir Melia- 




No. 241. — An Offender Exposed to Public Shame. 



graunce, saw him approach, and one of the latter exclaimed, " See, 
madam, where as rideth in a cart a goodly armed knight ! I suppose 
that he rideth to hanging." Guenever, however, saw by his shield that 
it was Sir Lancelot. "'Ah, most noble knight,' she said, when she 
saw him in this condition, ' I see well that thou hast been hard bested, 
when thou ridest in a cart.' Then she rebuked that lady that compared 
him to one riding in a cart to hanging. ' It was foul mouthed,' said 
the queen, ' and evil compared, so to compare the most noble knight 



356 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



of the world in such a shameful death. Jhesu ! defend him and 
keep him/ said the queen, ' from all mischievous end.' " 

Our next cut (No. 242) is taken from the same manuscript in the 
British Museum which furnished us with No. 240. The playful 
draughtsman has presented a scene from the world " upso-down," in 




No. 242. — A Criminal drawn to the- Gallows. 

which the rabbits (or perhaps hares) are leading to execution their old 
enemy the dog. 

The gallows and the wheel were instruments of execution of such 





No. 243. — Mediaeval Ornaments of the Landscape. 

common use in the Middle Ages that they were continually before 
people's eyes. Every town, every abbey, and almost every large manorial 
lord, had the right of hanging, and a gallows or tree with a man hanging 
upon it was so frequent an object in the country that it seems to have 
been considered as almost a natural ornament of a landscape, and it 



THE GALLOWS. 357 



is thus introduced by no means uncommonly in mediaeval manuscripts. 
The two examples given in our cut No. 243 are taken from the illumi- 
nations in the manuscript of the romance of the " Chevalereux Comte 
d'Artois," in the manuscript from which this romance was printed by 
M. Barrois. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Old English Cookery. — History of " Gourmandise." — English Cookery 
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. — Bills of Fare. — Great 
Feasts. 

I HAVE spoken of the ceremonious forms of the service of the 
mediseval table, but we are just now arrived at the period when we 
begin to have full information on the composition of the culinary dishes 
in which our ancestors indulged, and it will perhaps be well to give a 
brief summary of that information as illustrative both of the period we 
have now been considering, and of that which follows. 

There is a part of the human frame, not very noble in itself, which, 
nevertheless, many people are said to worship, and which has even exer- 
cised at times a considerable influence over man's destinies. Gastrolatry, 
indeed, is a worship which, at one time or other, has prevailed in different 
forms over all parts of the world — its history takes an extensive range, 
and is not altogether without interest. One of the first objects of search 
in a man who has just risen from savage life to civilisation is rather 
naturally refinement in his food, and this desire more than keeps pace 
with the advance of general refinement, until cookery becomes one 
of the most important of social institutions. During all periods of 
which we read in history, great public acts, of whatever kind, even to 
the consecration of a church, have been accompanied with feasting ; 
and the same rule holds good throughout all the different phases of our 
social relations. . The materials for the history of eating are, indeed, 
abundant, and the field is extensive. 

William of Malmesbury, as we have seen before, tells us that the 
Anglo-Saxons indulged in great feasting, and lived in very mean houses; 
whereas the Normans eat with moderation, but built for themselves 



THE LOVE OF THE TABLE. 359 

magnificent mansions. Various allusions in old writers leave little room 
for doubt that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in much eating 3 
but, as far as we can gather, for our information is very imperfect, this 
indulgence consisted more in the quantity than in the quality of the food, 
for their cookery seems to have been in general what we call " plain." 
Refinement in cookery appears to have come in with the Normans ; and 
from the twelfth century to the sixteenth we can trace the love of the 
table continually increasing. The monks, whose institution had, to a 
certain degree, separated them from the rest of the world, and who 
usually, and from the circumstances perhaps naturally, sought sensual 
gratifications, fell soon into the sin of gluttony, and they seem to have led 
the way in refinement in the variety and elaborate character of their 
dishes. Giraldus Cambrensis, an ecclesiastic himself, complains in very 
indignant terms of the luxurious table kept by the monks of Canterbury 
in the latter half of the twelfth century ; and he relates an anecdote 
which shows how far at that time the clergy were, in this respect, in 
advance of the laity. One day, when Henry II. paid a visit to Win- 
chester, the prior and monks of St Swithin met him, and fell on their 
knees before him to complain of the tyranny of their bishop. When the 
king asked what was their grievance, they said that their table had been 
curtailed of three dishes. The king, somewhat surprised at this com- 
plaint, and imagining, no doubt, that the bishop had not left them 
enough to eat, inquired how many dishes he had left them. They 
replied, ten ; at which the king, in a fit of indignation, told them that 
he himself had no more than three dishes to his table, and uttered an 
imprecation against the bishop, unless he reduced them to the same 
number. 

But although we have abundant evidence of the general fact that our 
Norman and English forefathers loved the table, we have but imperfect 
information on the character of their cookery until the latter half of the 
fourteenth century, when the rules and receipts for cooking appear 
to have been very generally committed to writing, and a certain 
number of cookery-books belonging to this period and to the following 
century remain in manuscript, forming very curious records of the 
domestic life of our forefathers. From these I will give a few illustra- 
tions of this subject. These cookery books sometimes contain plans for 



360 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

dinners of different descriptions, or, as we now should say, bills of fare, 
which enable us, by comparing the names of the dishes with the receipts 
for making them, to form a tolerably distinct notion of the manner in 
which our forefathers fared at table from four to five hundred years ago. 
The first example we shall give is furnished by a manuscript of the 
beginning of the fifteenth century, and belongs to the latter part of the 
century preceding; that is, to the reign of Richard II., a period re- 
markable for the passion for luxurious living : it gives us the following 
bill of fare for the ordinary table of a gentleman, which I will arrange in 
the form of a bill of fare of the present day, modernising the language, 
except in the case of obsolete words. 

First Course. 
Boar's head enarmed (larded), and " bruc'e," for pottage. 
Beef. Mutton. Pestles [legs) of Pork. 
Swan. Roasted Rabbit. Tart. 

Second Course. 
Drope and Rose, for pottage. 
Mallard. Pheasant. Chickens, " farsed " and roasted. 
" Malachis," baked. 

T/iird Course. 
Conings (rabbits), in gravy, and hare, in " brase"," for pottage. 
Teals, roasted. Woodcocks. Snipes. 
" Raffyolys," baked. " Flampoyntes." 

It may be well to make the general remark, that the ordinary num- 
ber of courses at dinner was three. To begin, then, with the first dish, 
boar's-head was a favourite article at table, and needs no explanation. 
The pottage which follows, under the name of bruce, was made as fol- 
lows, according to a receipt in the same cookery-book which has fur- 
nished the bill of fare : — 

Take the umbles of a swine, and parboil them (boil them slowly), and cut 
them small, and put them in a pot, with some good broth ; then take the 
whites of leeks, and slit them, and cut them small, and put them in, with 
minced onions, and let it all boil ; next take bread steeped in broth, and 
" draw it up " with blood and vinegar, and put it into a pot, with pepper and 
cloves, and let it boil ; and serve all this together. 

In the second course, drqpe is probably an error for drore, a pottage, 
which, according to the same cookery-book, was made as follows : — 



RECEIPTS FOR COOKING. 361 



Take almonds, and blanch and grind them, and mix them with good meat 
broth, and seethe this in a pot ; then mince onions, and fry them in fresh 
" grease," and put them to the almonds ; take small birds, and parboil them, 
and throw them into the pottage, with cinnamon and cloves and a little 
" fair grease," and boil the whole. 

Rose was made as follows : — 

Take powdered rice, and boil it in almond-milk till it be thick, and take 
the brawn of capons and hens, beat it in a mortar, and mix it with the preced- 
ing, and put the whole into a pot, with powdered cinnamon and cloves, and 
whole mace, and cover it with saunders (sandal-wood). 

It may be necessary to explain that almond-milk consisted simply of 
almonds ground and mixed with milk or broth. The farsure, or stuff- 
ing, for chickens was made thus : — 

Take fresh pork, seethe it, chop it small, and grind it well ; put to it hard 
yolks of eggs, well mixed together, with dried currants, powder of cinnamon 
and maces, cubebs, and cloves whole, and roast it. 

I am unable to explain the meaning of malachis, the dish which 
concludes this course. 

The first dish in the third course, coneys, or rabbits, in gravy, was 
made as follows : — 

Take rabbits, and parboil them, and chop them in " gobbets," and seethe 
them in a pot with good broth ; then grind almonds, " dress them up," with 
beef broth, and boil this in a pot ; and, after passing it through a strainer, 
put it to the rabbits, adding to the whole cloves, maces, pines {the kernels of 
the pine-cone), and sugar ; colour it with sandal-wood, saffron, bastard or other 
wine, and cinnamon powder mixed together, and add a little vinegar. 

Not less complicated was the boar in hrase, or brasey : — 

Take the ribs of a boar, while they are fresh, and parboil them till they are 
half boiled ; then roast them, and, when they are roasted, chop them, and 
put them in a pot with good fresh beef broth and wine, and add cloves, 
maces, pines, currants, and powdered pepper ; then put chopped onions in 
a pan, with fresh grease, fry them first and then boil them ; next, take bread, 
steeped in broth, " draw it up " and put it to the onions, and colour it with 
sandal-wood and saffron, and as it settles, put a little vinegar mixed with 
powdered cinnamon to it ; then take brawn, and cut it into slices two inches 
long, and throw it into the pot with the foregoing, and serve it all up 
together. 

Raffyolys were a sort of patties, derived from Italy, where they are still 



3 62 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

used as a delicacy under the name of raviuoli ; they were made as 
follows : — 

Take swine's flesh, seethe it, chop it small, add to it yolks of eggs, and 
mix them well together ; put to this a little minced lard, grated cheese, pow- 
dered ginger, and cinnamon ; make of this balls of the size of an apple, and 
wrap them up in the cawl of the swine, each ball by itself ; make a raised 
crust of dough, and put the ball in it, and bake it ; when they are baked, 
take yolks of eggs well beaten, with sugar and pepper, coloured with saffron, 
and pour this mixture over them. 

Flamfioyntes (pork-pies) were made thus : — 

Take good "interlarded" pork, seethe it, and chop it, and grind it small ; 
put to it good fat cheese grated, and sugar and pepper ; put this in raised 
paste like the preceding ; then make a thin leaf of dough, out of which cut 
small "points," fry these in grease, and then stick them in the foregoing 
mixture after it has been put in the crust, and bake it. 

Such was a tolerably respectable dinner at the end of the fourteenth 
century ; but the same treatise gives us the following bill of fare, for a 
larger dinner, though still arranged in three courses : — 

First Course. 

Browet farsed, and charlet, for pottage. 

Baked mallard. Teals. Small birds. Almond milk served with them. 

Capon roasted with the syrup. 

Roasted veal. Pig roasted " ' endored,' and served with the yolk on his neck 

over gilt." Herons. 

A " leche." A tart of flesh. 

Second Course. 

Browet of Almayne and Viaunde rial for pottage. 

Mallard. Roasted rabbits. Pheasant. Venison. 

Jelly. A leche. Urchynnes {hedgehogs). 

Pome de orynge. 

Third Course. 

Boar in egurdouce, and Mawmene, for pottage. 

Cranes, Kid. Curlew. Partridge. (All roasted). 

A leche. A crustade. 

A peacock endored and roasted, and served with the skin. 

Cockagris. Flampoyntes. Daryoles. 

Pears in syrup. 

Browet, or brewet, was the English word for a pottage, from the Anglo- 



RECEIPTS FOR COOKING. 363 



Saxon briw. The receipt for making farsed browet, or browet farsyn, 
is literally as follows : — 

Take almonds and pound them, and mix with beef broth, so as to make it 
thick, and put it in a pot with cloves, maces, and figs, currants, and minced 
ginger, and let all this seethe ; take bread, and steep it in sweet wine, and 
" draw it up," and put it to the almonds with sugar ; then take conyngs 
{rabbits), or rabbettes {young rabbits), or squirrels, and first parboil and then 
fry them, and partridges parboiled ; fry them whole for a lord, but otherwise 
chop them into gobbets ; and when they are almost fried, cast them in a pot, 
and let them boil all together, and colour with sandal-wood and saffron ; 
then add vinegar and powdered cinnamon strained with wine, and give it a 
boil ; then take it from the fire, and see that the pottage is thin, and throw 
in a good quantity of powdered ginger. 

It is repeated, at the end of this receipt, that, for a lord, a coney, 
rabbit, squirrel, or partridge, should be served whole in this manner. 
The other pottage in this course, charlet, was less complex, and was 
made thus : — 

Take sweet cow's milk, put it in a pan, throw into it the yolks and white 
of eggs, and boiled pork, pounded, and sage ; let it boil till it curds ; and 
colour it with saffron. 

The following was the syrup for a capon : — 

Take almonds, and pound them, and mix them with wine, till they make 
a thick " milk," and colour it with saffron, and put it in a saucepan, and put 
into it a good quantity of figs and currants, and add ground ginger, cloves, 
galingale {a spice tmich used in the Middle Ages), and cinnamon ; let all this 
boil ; add sugar, and pour it over your capon or pheasant. 

The leche in this first course was, perhaps, the dish which is called in 
the receipts a leche lumbarde, which was made thus : — 

Take raw pork, and pull off the skin, and pick out the skin sinews, and 
pound the pork in a mortar with raw eggs ; add to it sugar, salt, raisins, 
currants, minced dates, powdered pepper, and cloves ; put it in a bladder, 
and let it seethe till it be done enough, and then cut it into slips of the form 
of peas-cods : grind raisins in a mortar, mix them with red wine, and put to 
them almond-milk, coloured with sandal-wood and saffron, and add pepper 
and cloves, and then boil the whole ; when it is boiled, mix cinnamon and 
ginger with wine and pour on it, and so serve it. 

Browet of Almayjie, which comes in with the second course of this 
dinner, was a rather celebrated pottage. It was made in the following 
manner : — 



364 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Take coneys, and parboil them, and chop them in gobbets, and put them, 
with ribs of pork or kid into a pot, and seethe it ; then take ground almonds, 
and mix them with beef broth, and put this in a pot with cloves, maces, 
pines, minced ginger, and currants, and with onions, and boil it, and colour it 
with saffron, and when this is boiled, take the flesh out from the broth, and 
put it in it ; and take " alkanet " {alkanel is explained in the dictionaries as 
the name of a plant, wild buglos ; it appears to have been used in cookery to 
give colour), and fry it, and press it into the pot through a strainer, and 
finally add a little vinegar and ground ginger mixed together. 

The composition of viande royale was as follows : — 

Take Greek wine, or Rhenish wine, and clarified honey, and mix them 
well with ground rice, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, saffron, sugar, 
mulberries, and sandal-wood ; boil the mixture, and salt it, and take care 
that it be thick. 

Pome de oringe was quite a different thing to what we should expect 
from the name. It was made as follows : — 

Take pork liver, pound it well raw, and put to it ground pepper, cloves, 
cinnamon, saffron, and currants ; make of this balls like apples, and wet 
them well in the white of eggs, and then put them in boiling water, and let 
them seethe, and when they have seethed a while, take them out, and put 
them on a spit, and roast them well ; then take parsley, and grind it, and 
wring it up with eggs through a strainer, and put a little flour to it, and with 
this " endore " the balls while roasting, and, if you will, you may take saffron, 
sandal-wood, or indigo, to colour them. 

Endore was the technical term of the kitchen for washing over an 
article of cookery with yolks of eggs, or any other liquid, to give a 
shiny appearance to its exterior when cooked, as if it were gilt. 

Both the pottages in the third course are rather elaborate ones. The 
following was the process of making boar in egurdoitce, or egredouce, a 
word which of course means " sour-sweet : — 

Take dates, washed clean, and currants, and boil them, and pound them 
together, and in pounding put cloves to them, and mix them up with vinegar, 
or clarey, or other sweet wine, and put it in a fair pot, and boil it well ; and 
then put to it half a quartern of sugar, or else honey, and half an ounce of 
cinnamon in powder, and in the " setting down " take a little vinegar and 
mix with it, and half an ounce of ground ginger, and a little sandal-wood 
and saffron ; and in the boiling put minced ginger to it ; next, take fresh 
brawn, and seethe it, and then cut it in thin slices, and lay three in a dish, 
and then take half a pound of pines, and fry them in fresh grease, and throw 
the pines into it ; and when they are thoroughly hot take them out with a 
skimmer, and let them dry, and cast them into the same pot ; and then put 
the syrup above the brawn in the dishes, and serve it. 



RECEIPTS FOR COOKING. 365 



Mawmene was made according to the following receipt : — 

Take almonds and blanch them and pound them, and mix them with water 
or wine, and take the brawn of capons or pheasants, and pound it small, 
and mix it with the other, and add ground rice, and put it in a pot and let it 
boil ; and add powder of ginger and cloves, and cinnamon and sugar; and 
take rice, and parboil and grind it, and add it to them, and colour it 
with sandal-wood, and pour it out in dishes ; and take the grains of pome- 
granates and stick in it, or almonds or pines fried in grease, and strew sugar 
over it. 

The following was the manner of making the crustade, mentioned in 

the third course of this bill of fare : — 

Take chickens, and pigeons, and small birds, and make them clean, and 
chop them to pieces, and stew them all together in a good broth made of 
fair grease and ground pepper and cloves, and add verjus to it, and colour 
it with saffron ; then make raised crusts, and pinch them and lay the 
flesh therein, and put to it currants, and ground ginger, and cinnamon ; 
and take raw eggs, and break them, and strain them through a strainer 
into the pottage of the stew, and stir it well together, and pour it into 
the raised crusts, above the flesh, and then place the covers on them and 
serve them. 

The process of serving a peacock " with the skin " also requires some 
explanation. The skin was first stripped off, with the feathers, tail, and 
neck and head, and it was spread on a table and strewed with ground 
cummin ; then the peacock was taken and roasted, and " endored " 
with raw yolks of eggs ; and when roasted, and after it had been allowed 
to cool a little, it was sewn into the skin, and thus served on the table, 
always with the last course, when it looked as though the bird were 
alive. To make cokagrys, you must 

Take an old cock and pull him, and wash him, and skin him all but the 
legs, and fill him full of the stuffing made for the pome de oringe ; and also 
take a pig and skin him from the middle downwards, and fill him full of the 
same stuffing, and sew them fast together, and seethe them ; and when they 
have seethed a good while, take them up and put them on a spit, and roast 
them well, and endore them with yolks of eggs mixed with saffron ; and 
when they are roasted, before placing them on the table, lay gold and silver 
foil on them. 

Flampoyntes have been already explained. Pears in syrup were merely 
boiled in wine, and seasoned with sugar and spices. 

In these bills of fare, our readers who believe in the prevalence of 
" old English roast beef," will find that belief singularly dissipated, for 



366 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



our ancestors seem to have indulged in all sorts of elaborately made 
dishes, in which immense quantities of spices were employed. The 
number of receipts in these early cookery-books is wonderfully great, and 
it is evident that people sought variety almost above all other things. 
Among the Sloane manuscripts in the library of the British Museum, 
there is a very complete cookery-book (MS. No. 1201) belonging to the 
latter part of the fifteenth century, which gives seven bills of fare of 
seven dinners, each to differ entirely in the dishes composing it from 
the other, with the object, of course, of giving a different dinner every 
day during seven consecutive days. In the foregoing bills of fare, we 
have seen that on flesh-days no fish was introduced on the table, but fish 
is introduced along with flesh in the seven dinners just alluded to, which 
are, moreover, curious for the number of articles, chiefly birds, introduced 
in them, which we are not now accustomed to eat. The first of these 
bills of fare, which are all limited to two courses, runs as follows : — 

First Course, of Eleven Dishes. 

Nowmbles (umbles) of an harte. Vyand ryalle. The syde of an hert rostede- 

Swanne with chauderoun. Fesaunt rostede. Bytore {bittern) rostede. 

Pyke, and grete gurnarde. 

Haggesse of Almayne. Blaunche custade. 

A sotelte, a blake bore enarmede with golde. 

Second Course, of Eleven Dishes. 

Gele. Cream of almonds. 

Kynd kydde. Fillets of an herte endored. Squyrelle rost. 

Chykons {chickens) ylarded. Partriche and lark rost. 

Perche and porpoys rost. 

Frytours Lumbard. Payne puffe {puff-bread). 

A sotelte, a castelle of sylver with fanes {vanes or flags) of gold. 



It appears that at this time it was considered more absolutely neces- 
sary than at an earlier period, that each course at table should be 
accompanied with a subtilty, or ornamental device in pastry, representing 
groups of various descriptions, as here a black boar and a castle. We 
have here the porpoise eaten among fishes, and the squirrel among 
animals; we have before seen hedgehogs served at table. In the 
" Menagier de Paris," a French compilation, made in the year 1393, a 
hedgehog is directed to have its throat cut, and to be skinned and 



A BILL OF FARE. 367 



emptied, and then to be arranged as a chicken, and pressed and well 
dried in a towel; after this it was to be roasted and eaten with "cameline," 
a word the exact meaning of which seems not to be known ; or in pastry, 
with duckling sauce. Squirrels were to be treated as rabbits. The 
same book gives directions for cooking magpies, rooks, and jackdaws. 
The second of the seven bills of fare given in the Sloane manuscript 
contains turtles (the bird) and throstles, roasted ; in the third we have 
roasted egrets (a species of heron), starlings, and linnets; in the fourth, 
" martinettes ;" in the fifth, barnacles, "molette," sparrows, and, among 
fishes, minnows ; and in the sixth, roasted cormorants, heathcocks, 
sheldrakes, dotterels, and thrushes. The seventh bill of fare runs 
thus : — 

First Course, of Nine Dishes. 

Long wortes {vegetables). An hen in dubate. 

Shuldres of motoun. 

Wylde goos. Wode doves. 

Fresh laumprey. Grete codlynge. 

Bonsomers. Tortons, in paste. 

Second Course, of Ten Dishes. 

Pynnonade {a confection of almonds and pines). 

Malardes of the rivere. 

Cotes, rost, and dampettes. 

Quayles, and goldefynche. 

Ele reversed. Breme' de mere. 

Frypours ryalle. Viande en feast. 

Quarters of lambe. 

The bills of fare I have thus given are intended for dinners of mode- 
rate size, but I might easily have given much larger ones, though we 
should have learned nothing more by them than by the smaller ones, 
from which the reader will be able to form a very good judgment of the 
general style of eating among our forefathers, when they lived well. The 
fifteenth century, especially, was celebrated for its great feasts, at which 
the consumption of provisions was enormous. The bills of expenses of 
some of them have been preserved. In the sixth year of the reign of 
Edward IV. (a.d. 1466), George Nevile was made archbishop of York, 
and the account of the expenditure for the feast on that occasion contains 
the following articles : — Three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred 



368 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



tuns of ale, one hundred tuns of wine, one pint of hypocras, a hundred 
and four oxen, six wild bulls, a thousand sheep, three hundred and four 
calves, the same number of swine, four hundred swans, two thousand 
geese, a thousand capons, two thousand pigs, four hundred plovers, a 
hundred dozen of quails, two hundred dozen of the birds called " rees," 
a hundred and four peacocks, four thousand mallards and teals, two 
hundred and four cranes, two hundred and four kids, two thousand 
chickens, four thousand pigeons, four thousand crays, two hundred and 
four bitterns, four hundred herons, two hundred pheasants, five hundred 
partridges, four hundred woodcocks, one hundred curlews, a thousand 
egrettes, more than five hundred stags, bucks, and roes, four thousand 
cold venison pasties, a thousand " parted " dishes of jelly, three thousand 
plain dishes of jelly, four thousand cold baked tarts, fifteen hundred hot 
venison pasties, two thousand hot custards, six hundred and eight pikes 
and breams, twelve porpoises and seals, with a proportionate quantity 
of spices, sugared delicacies, and wafers or cakes. 

On the enthronation of William Warham as archbishop of Canterbury 
in 1504, the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VII., a feast was 
given for which the following provisions were purchased : — Fifty-four 
quarters of wheat, twenty shillings' worth of fine flour for making wafers, 
six tuns or pipes of red wine, four of claret wine, one of choice white 
wine, and one of white wine for the kitchen, one butt of malmsey, one 
pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London 
ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer, thirty-three pounds' 
worth of spices, three hundred lings, six hundred codfish, seven barrels 
of salted salmon, forty fresh salmon, fourteen barrels of white herrings, 
twenty cades of red herrings (each cade containing six hundred herrings, 
which would make a total of twelve thousand), five barrels of salted 
sturgeons, two barrels of salted eels, six hundred fresh eels, eight thou- 
sand whelks, five hundred pikes, four hundred tenches, a hundred carps, 
eight hundred breams, two barrels of salted lampreys, eighty fresh 
lampreys, fourteen hundred fresh lamperns, a hundred and twenty-four 
salted congors, two hundred great roaches, a quantity of seals and por- 
poises, with a considerable quantity of other fish. It will be under- 
stood at once that this feast took place on a fish day. 

This habit of profuse and luxurious living seems to have gradually 



RETURN TO SIMPLER LIVING. 369 

declined during the sixteenth and first part of the seventeenth century, 
until it was extinguished in the great convulsion which produced the 
Interregnum. After the Restoration, we find that the table, among all 
classes, was furnished more soberly, and with plainer and more sub- 
stantial dishes. 



2 A 



CHAPTER XX. 

Slow Progress of Society in the Fifteenth Century. — Enlargement of the 
Houses. — The Hall and its Furniture. — Arrangement of the Table for 
Meals. — Absence of Cleanliness. — Manners at Table. — The Parlour. 

THE progress of society in the two countries which were most 
closely allied in this respect, England and France, was slow 
during the fifteenth century. Both countries were engaged either in 
mutual hostility or in desolating civil wars, which so utterly checked 
all spirit of improvement, that the aspect of society differed little be- 
tween the beginning and the end of the century in anything but dress. 
At the close of the fourteenth century, the middle classes in England 
had made great advance in wealth and independence, and the Wars of 
the Roses, which were so destructive to the nobility, as well as the 
tendency of the crown to set the gentry up as a balance to the power 
of the feudal barons, helped to make that advance more certain and 
rapid. This increase of wealth appears in the multiplication of furniture 
and of other household implements, especially of those of a more valu- 
able description. We are surprised, in running our eye through the 
wills and inventories during this period, at the quantity of plate which 
was usually possessed by country gentlemen and respectable burghers. 
There was also a great increase both in the number and magnitude of the 
houses which intervened between the castle and the cottage. Instead 
of having one or two bedrooms, and turning people into the hall to 
sleep at night, we now find whole suites of chambers ; while, where 
before the family lived chiefly in the hall, privacy was sought by the 
addition of parlours, of which there were often more than one in an 
ordinary sized house. The hall was in fact already beginning to diminish 
in importance in comparison with the rest of the house. Whether in 
town or country, houses of any magnitude were now generally built 



ARCHITECTURE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 371 

round an interior court, into which the rooms almost invariably looked, 
only small and unimportant windows looking towards the street or 
country. This arrangement of course originated in the necessity of 
studying security — a necessity which was never felt more than in the 
fifteenth century. We have less need to seek our illustrations from manu- 
scripts during this period, on account of the numerous examples of 




No. 244. — Court of a House of the Fifteenth Century. 

buildings which still remain in a greater or less state of perfection, but 
still an illumination now and then presents us with an interesting picture 
of the architectural arrangements of a dwelling-house in the fifteenth 
century, which may be advantageously compared with the buildings 
that still exist. One of these is represented in our cut No. 244, taken 
from an illuminated copy of the French translation of Valerius Maximus 
(MS. No. 6984, in the National Library in Paris). The building to 



37- 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the left is probably the staircase turret of the gateway ; that before us 
is the mass of the household apartments. We are supposed to be 
standing within the court. At the foot of the turret is the well, a very 
important object within the court, where it was always placed in 
houses of this description, as in the troubles of those days the house- 
hold might be obliged to shut themselves up for a day or two and 
depend for their supply of water entirely on what they could get within 
their walls. 

Our last cut (No. 244) is a remarkably good and perfect repre- 
sentation of the exterior, looking towards the court, of the domestic 
buildings. The door on the ground floor to the right is probably, to 
judge by the position of the windows, the entrance to the hall. The 
steps leading to the first floor are outside the wall, an arrangement which 
is not uncommon in the existing examples of houses of this period in 
England. It is perhaps 'what was called in French the fierrin, as 

mentioned before. We have also here 
the open gallery round the chambers 
on the first floor, which is so frequently 
met with in our houses of the fifteenth 
century. It is probable that within the 
door at the top of the external flight of 
steps, as here represented, a short stair- 
case led up to the floor on which the 
chambers were situated. Perhaps it 
may have been a staircase into the gal- 
§§?; lery, as the opening round the corner 
to the right seems to be a door from 
the gallery into the chambers. 

In another illumination in the same 
manuscript (cut No. 245), a knight is represented knocking at the door 
of a house into which he seeks admittance. The plain knocker and the 
ring will be recognised at once by all who have been accustomed to exa- 
mine the original doors still remaining in many of our very old buildings. 
The person preparing to enter knocks with his left hand to announce 
his approach, while with the right hand he turns the ring and thus un- 
latches the door. It is a practice which still exists in France and in some 




No. 245. — A Knight at the Door. 



THE HALL AND ITS FURNITURE. 373 

other parts of the Continent. The knocker, instead of being plain, as in 
this cut, was often very ornamental. This is, of course, the outer door 
of the house, and our readers will not overlook the loophole and the 
small window through which the person who knocked might be examined, 
and, if necessary, interrogated, before he was admitted. 

Let us now pass through the door on the ground floor, always open 
by day, into the hall. This was still the most spacious apartment in the 
house, and it was still also the public room, open to all who were admitted 
within the precincts. The hall continued to be scantily furnished. The 
permanent furniture consisted chiefly in benches, and in a seat with a 
back to it for the superior members of the family. The head table at 
least was now generally a permanent one, and there were in general 
more permanent tables, or tables dormant, than formerly, but still the 
greater part of the tables in the hall were made for each meal by placing 
boards upon trestles. Cushions, with ornamental clothes, called bankers 
and dorsers, to be placed over the benches and backs of the seats of the 
better persons at the table, were now also in general use. Tapestry was 
suspended on the walls of the hall on special occasions, but it does not 
appear to have been of common use. Another article of furniture had 
now become common — the buffet, or stand, on which the plate and other 
vessels were arranged. These articles appear to have been generally in 
the keeping of the butler, and only to have been brought into the hall 
and arranged on the buffet at meal times, for show as much as for use. 
The dinner party in our cut No. 246, taken from an illumination of a 
manuscript of the romance of the " Comte d'Artois," formerly in the 
possession of M. Barrois, a distinguished and well-known collector in 
Paris, represents a royal party dining at a table with much simplicity. 
The ornamental vessel on the table is probably the salt-cellar, which was 
a very important article at the feast. Besides the general utility of salt, 
it was regarded with profoundly superstitious feelings, and it was con- 
sidered desirable that it should be the first article placed on the table. 
We have still a feeling of superstition with regard to the spilling of salt. 
A metrical code for the behaviour of servants, written in the fifteenth 
century, directs that, in preparing the table for meals, the table-cloth was 
first to be spread, and then, invariably and in all places, the salt was to 
be placed upon it ; next were to be arranged successively, the knives, the 



374 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



bread, the wine, and then the meat, after which the waiter was to bring 
other things, when each was called for — 

Tu dois mettre preincrement 
En tous lieux et en tout hostel 
La nappe, et apres le sel ; 
Cousteaulx, pain, vin, et puis viande, 
Puis apporter ce qu'on demande. 

In this cut (No. 246) it will be seen that the " nappe " is duly laid, 
and upon it are seen the salt-cellar, the bread (round cakes), and the 
cups for wine. Knives are wanting, and the plates seldom appear on 
the table in these dinner scenes of the fifteenth century, any more than 




; No. 246. — A Dinner-Scene at Court. 

in the previous period. This, no doubt, arose from the common prac- 
tice at that time of people carrying their own knives with them in a 
sheath attached to the girdle. We find, moreover, few knives enumer- 
ated in our inventories of household goods and chattels. In the English 
metrical " Stans Puer ad Mensam," or rules for behaviour at table, 
written by Lydgate, the guest is told to "bring no knyves unskoured to 
the table," which can only mean that he is to keep his own knife that 
he carries with him clean. The two servants are here duly equipped 



FURNITURE-INVENTORIES. 



375 



for duty, with the towel thrown over the shoulder. The table appears 
to be placed on two board-shaped trestles, but the artist has forgotten to 
indicate the seats. But in our next cut (No. 247), a very private party, 
taken from a manuscript of the early French translation of the Deca- 
meron (in the National Library at Paris, No. 6887), are placed in a seat 
with a back to it, although the table is still evidently a board placed 
upon trestles. It may be remarked that in dinner scenes of this cen- 
tury, the gentlemen at table are almost always represented with their 
hats on their heads. This appears to have been a part of good man- 
ners, its object being to prevent the man's hair from falling off upon 
the meat. I am told that the same feeling and practice still exists 




No. 247. — A Private Dinner. 

among the peasantry in France. It would seem to show that our 
mediaeval forefathers did not keep their hair well brushed. 

As I have already hinted, the inventories of this period give us 
curious information on the furniture of houses of different descriptions. 
We learn from one of these, made in 1446, that there were at that time 
belonging to the hall of the priory of Durham, one dorsal or dorser, 
embroidered with the birds of St Cuthbert and the arms of the church, 
five pieces of red cloth (three embroidered and two plain), no doubt 
for the same purpose of throwing over the seats ; six cushions ; three 
basins of brass ; and three washing-basins. A gentleman at Northaller- 
ton, in Yorkshire, who made his will in 1444, had in his hall thirteen 
jugs or pots of brass, four basins, and two ewers (of course, for washing 
the hands), three candlesticks, five (metal) dishes, three kettles, nine 
vessels of lead and pewter, "utensils of iron belonging to the hall," 
valued at two shillings — probably the fire-irons —one dorser and one 



376 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



banker. An inventory of a gentleman's goods in the year 1463, appar- 
ently in the southern part of England (printed in the " New Retrospec- 
tive Review "), gives, as the contents of the hall, — a standing spear, a 
hanging of stained work, a mappa-mundi (a map of the world) of parch- 
ment — a curious article for the hall — aside-table, one "dormond" table 
(a permanent table), a beam with six candlesticks. 

A vocabulary of the fifteenth century (" Volume of Vocabularies," 
p. 197) enumerates, as the ordinary furniture of the hall, a board, a 
trestle, a banker, a dorser, a natte (table-cloth), a table dormant, a basin, 




No. 248. — Reception of the Minstrel. 

a laver, fire on a hearth, a brand or torch, a yule-block, an andiron, 
tongs, a pair of bellows, wood for the fire, a long settle, a chair, a bench, 
a stool, a cushion, and a screen. The permanent or dormant table is 
shown in the scene given in our cut No. 248, taken from the beautifully 
illuminated manuscript of the " Roman de la Violette," at Paris, some 
fac-similes from which were privately distributed by the Comte de Bas- 
tard, from whom I had the honour of receiving a copy. We have here 
also the seat with its back, and the buffet with its jugs and dishes. In 
our cut No. 246, we had the waits or trumpeters, who were always 
attached to the halls of great people to announce the commencement of 



ETIQUETTE AT TABLE. 377 



the dinner. Only persons of a certain rank were allowed this piece of 
ostentation ; but everybody had minstrelsy to dinner who could obtain 
it, and when it was at hand. The wandering minstrel was welcome in 
every hall, and for this very reason the class of ambulatory musicians 
was very numerous. In the scene given in our cut No. 248, the wan- 
dering minstrel, or, according to the story, a nobleman in that disguise, 
has just arrived, and he is allowed, without ceremony or suspicion, to 
seat himself at the fire, apparently on a stool, beside the two individuals 
at dinner. 

The floor of the hall was usually paved with tiles, or with flag stones, 
and very little care appears to have been shown to cleanliness, as far as 
it was concerned, except that it was usual to strew it with rushes. 
Among the various French metrical " Contenances de Table," or direc- 
tions for behaviour at table, of the fifteenth century, the person in- 
structed is told that he must not spit tipo?i the table at dinner-time — 

Ne craiche par dessus la table, 
Car c'est chose desconvenable, 

which is necessarily an intimation that he must spit upon the floor. In 
another of these pieces he is told that when he washes his mouth at 
table, he must not reject the water into the basin — 

Quant ta bouche tu laveras, 
Ou bacin point ne cracheras. 

The reason for this rule was evidently the circumstance that one basin 
might serve for all the company; but the alternative again was of course 
to spit the water out upon the floor. Again, in one of these codes, the 
learner is told that when he makes sops in his wine, he must either drink 
all the wine in the glass, or throw what remains on the floor — 

Enfant, se tu faiz en ton verre 
Souppes de vin aucunement, 
Boy tout le vin entierement, 
Ou autrement le gecte a. terre. 

Or, as it is expressed in another similar code more briefly — 

Se tu fais souppes en ton verre, 
Boy le vin ou le gette a terre. 

There can be no doubt that all this must have made an extremely dirty 



378 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



floor. Another rather naive direction shows that no more attention was 
paid to the cleanliness of the benches and seats ; it is considered neces- 
sary to tell the scholar always to look at his seat before he sits down at 
table, to assure himself that there is nothing dirty upon it ! — 

Enfant, prens de regarder peine 
Sur le siege ou tu te sierras, 
Se aucune chose y verras 
Qui soit deshonneste ou vilaine. 

The fireplace at the side of the hall, with hearth and chimney, were 
now in general use. An example is given in our last cut ; another will 
be seen in our cut No. 249, and here, though evidently in the hall, and 




No. 249. — A Monastic Feast. 

a monastic hall too, the process of cooking is pursued at it. The monks 
appear to be taking a joyous repast, not quite in keeping with the strict 
rule of their order, and the way in which they are conducting themselves 
towards the women who have been introduced into the monastery does 
not speak in favour of monastic continence. This picture is from a 
manuscript Bible of the fifteenth century, in the National Library in 
Paris (No. 6829). 

Manners at table appear to have been losing some of the strictness 



ETIQUETTE AT TABLE. 379 



and stiffness of their ceremonial, while they retained their rudeness. 
The bowl of water was carried round to the guests, and each washed 
his hands before dinner, but the washing after dinner appears now to 
have been commonly omitted. In one of the directions for table 
already quoted, the scholar is told that he must wash himself when 
he rises from bed in the morning, once at dinner, and once at supper, 
in all thrice a day — 



Enfant, d'honneur lave tes mains 
A ton lever, a. ton disner, 
Et puis au soupper, sans finer ; 
Ce sont trois foys a tout le moins. 

And again, in another similar code — 

Lave tes mains devant disner, 
Et aussi quant vouldras soupper. 

Still people put their victuals to their mouth with their fingers, for, 
though forks were certainly known in the previous century, they were 
not used for conveying the food to the mouth. It was considered, never- 
theless, bad manners to carry the victuals to the mouth with the 

knife — 

Ne faiz pas ton morsel conduire 
A ton coustel, qui te peult nuire. 

Another practice strictly forbidden in these rules was picking your 
teeth with your knife while at table. From the use thus made of the 
hand, in the absence of forks, it may be supposed that we should have 
directions for keeping it clean during the process of eating. One of 
these appears droll enough to us at the present day. It is directed that 
a person sitting at table in company is not to blow his nose with the 
hand with which he takes his meat. Handkerchiefs were not yet in use, 
and the alternative of course was that, if any one felt the need of per- 
forming the operation in question, he was to lay down his knife, and to 
do it with the hand which held it. In one of the French codes this 
direction is given rather covertly, as follows — 

Ne touche ton nez a main nue 
Dont ta viande est tenue. 

But in another it is enunciated more crudely, thus — 



3 8o 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Enfant, se ton nez est morveux, 
Ne le torche de la main nue 
De quoy ta viande est tenue ; 
Le fait est vilain et honteux. 

All these circumstances show a state of manners which was very far from 

refined. 

Among other directions for table, you are told not to leave your spoon 

in your platter ; not to return back to your plate the food you have put 

in your mouth ; not to dip your meat in the salt-cellar to salt it, but to 

take a little salt on your knife and put it on the meat ; not to drink from 

a cup with a dirty mouth ; not to offer to another person the remains of 

your pottage; not to eat much cheese; to take only two or three nuts, 

when they are placed before you ; not to play with your knife ; not to 




.No. 250. — A Domestic Scene. 

roll your napkin into a cord, or tie it in knots ; and not to get intoxi- 
cated during dinner-time ! 

The above cut (No. 250), repeated here from an earlier part of 
our volume (p. 107), represents one of the backed seats, after a pat- 
tern of this century. It is taken from a manuscript of the romance 
of Launcelot du Lac, in the National Library in Paris (No. 594). It is 
probable that this seat belonged to the parlour, or, as the name signifies, 
conversation-room. The custom still continued of making seats with 
divisions, so that each person sat in a separate compartment. A triple 
seat of this kind is represented in our cut No. 251, taken from a manu- 
script of the French Boccaccio in the National Library in Paris. 

The parlour seems to have been ornamented with more care, and to 
have been better furnished than the hall. This apartment appears to 



THE PARLOUR AND ITS FURNITURE. 



38i 



have been placed sometimes on the ground floor, and sometimes on the 
floor above, and large houses had usually two or three parlours. It had 
often windows in recesses, with fixed seats on each side ; and the fire- 
place was smaller and more comfortable than that of the hall. As car- 
pets came into more general use, the parlour was one of the first rooms 
to receive this luxury. In the inventory I have already quoted from the 




No. 251. — A Triple Seat. 

" New Retrospective Review," the following articles of furniture are 
described as being in the parlour — 

A hanging of worsted, red and green. 

A cupboard of ash-boards, 

A table, and a pair of trestles. 

A branch of latten, with four lights. 

A pair of andirons. 

A pair of tongs. 

A form to sit upon. 

And a chair. 

This will give us a very good idea of what was the usual furniture of the 
parlour in the fifteenth century. The only movable seats are a single 
bench, and one chair — perhaps a seat with a back like that shown above. 
The table was even here formed by laying a board upon trestles. The 
cupboard was peculiar to this part of the house ; many of my readers 
will probably remember the parlour cupboards in our old country houses, 



38: 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the branched candlestick of metal, suspended from the ceiling, and the 
tongs and andirons for the fire. 

The principal articles of furniture in the parlour are all exhibited in 
illuminations in manuscripts of the same period. The "hanging of 
worsted " was, of course, a piece of tapestry for the wall, or for some 
part of the wall, for the room was in many, perhaps in most, cases, only 
partially covered. Sometimes, indeed, it appears only to have been 
hung up on occasions, perhaps for company, when the tapestry seems 
to have been placed behind the chief seat* The wall itself was fre- 




No. 252. — Morgan le Fay showing King Arthur the Paintings of the Adventures of Lancelot. 

quently adorned with paintings, in common houses rude and merely 
ornamental, while in others of a better class they represented histories, 
scenes from romances, and religious subjects, much like those exhibited 
on the tapestries themselves. In the above cut (No. 252), taken from 
a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the romance of " Lancelot," in 
the National Library at Paris, No. 6784, we have a representation of a 
parlour with wall-paintings of this kind. Morgan le Fay is showing 
King Arthur the adventures of Lancelot, which she had caused to be 
painted in a room in her palace. Paintings of this kind are very often 

* A Bury will, of the date of 1522, mentioned a little farther on, enumerates among 
the household furniture " the steynyd clothes hangyng abowte the parlour behynde 
the halle chemny." 



WALL-PAINTINGS. 



333 



alluded to in the old writers, especially in the poets, as every one knows 
who has read the " Romance of the Rose," the works of Chaucer, or 
that singular and curious poem, the " Pastyme of Pleasure," by Stephen 
Hawes. Chaucer, in his " Dream," speaks of— 

A chamber paint 
Full of stories old and divers, 
More than I can as now reherse. 

There was in the castle of Dover an apartment called Arthur's Hall, 
and another named Guenevra's Chamber, which have been supposed 
to be so called from the subjects of the paintings with which they 
were decorated; and a still more curious illustration is furnished 




N . 253.— Wall-Paintings still remaining in a House at Salisbury. 



by an old house of this period still existing in New Street, Salisbury, 
a room in which preserves its painting in distemper, occupying the 
upper part of the wall, like the story of Lancelot in the pictures of 
the room of Morgan le Fay. I give a sketch of the side of this room 
occupied by the painting in the accompanying cut (No. 253). It 
occupies the space above the fireplace, and the windows looking into 
the street, but it has been much damaged by modern alterations in the 
house. The subject, as will at once be seen, was of a sacred character, 
the offering of the three kings. 

The window to the left of the fireplace, which is one of the original 



384 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

windows of this house, has a deep sill, or seat, which was intended as 
one of the accommodations for sitting down. This was not unfrequently 
made with a recess in the middle, so as to form a seat on each side, on 
which two persons might sit face to face, and which was thus more con- 
venient both for conversation, and for looking through the window at 
what was going on without. This appears to have been a favourite seat 
with the female part of the household when employed in needlework 
and other sedentary occupations. There is an allusion to this use of 
the window sill in the curious old poem of the Lady Bessy," which is 
probably somewhat obscured by the alterations of the modern copyist ; 
when the young princess kneels before her father, he takes her up and 
seats her in the window — 

I came before my father the king, ' 

And kneeled down upon my knee ; 
I desired him lowly of his blessing, 

And full soon he gave it unto me. 
And in his arms he could me thring, 

And set me in a window so high. 

The words of our inventory, " a form to sit upon, and a chair," 
describe well the scanty furnishing of the rooms of a house at this 
period. The cause of this poverty in movables, which arose more 
from the general insecurity of property than the inability to procure it, 
is curiously illustrated by a passage from a letter of Margaret Paston to 
her husband, written early in the reign of Edward IV. " Also," says 
the lady to her spouse, " if ye be at home this Christmas, it were well 
done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain of pewter vessel, two 
basins and two ewers, and twelve candlesticks, for ye have too few of 
any of these to serve this place ; I am afraid to purvey much stuff in 
this place, till we be surer thereof." As yet, a form or bench continued 
to be the usual seat, which could be occupied by several persons at 
once. One chair, as in the inventory just mentioned, was considered 
enough for a room, and was no doubt preserved for the person of most 
dignity, perhaps for the lady of the household. Towards the latter 
end of this period, however, chairs, made in a simpler form, and stools, 
the latter very commonly three-legged, became more abundant. Yet 
in a will dated so late as 1522 (printed in the "Bury Wills" of the 
Camden Society), an inhabitant of Bury in Suffolk, who seems to have 



CHAIRS. 



385 



possessed a large house, and, for the time, a considerable quantity of house- 
hold furniture, had, of tables and chairs, only "a tabyll of waynskott with 
to (two) joynyd trestelles, ij. joynyd stolys (stools) of the best, a gret joynyd 
cheyre at the deyse in the halle — the grettest close cheyre, ij. fote stoles 
— a round tabyll of waynskott with lok and key, the secunde joynyd 
cheyer, ij. joynyd stolys." The ordinary forms of chairs and stools at 
the latter end of the fifteenth century are shown in our cut No. 254, 




No. 254. — Sculpture from the H6teI-de-Ville, Brussels. 

taken from a very curious sculpture in alto-relievo on one of the columns 
of the H6tel-de-Ville, at Brussels. At this time we begin to find 
examples of chairs ingeniously constructed, for folding up or taking to 
pieces, so as to be easily laid aside or 
carried away. Some of these resemble 
exactly our modern camp-stools. A 
curious bedroom chair of this construc- 
tion is represented in our cut No. 255, 
taken from a fine illuminated manu- 
script of the romance of the " Comte 
dArtois," of the fifteenth century, in 
the collection of M. Barrois of Paris, 
but now, I believe, in the library of 
Lord Ashburnham. The construction 
of this chair, which seems to have been 
common at this period, is too evident 
to need explanation. It explains the 
phrase, used in some of our old writers, of unfolding a chair. 




No. 255. — A Bedroom Chair. 



2 B 



386 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



At this time much greater use appears to have been made of candles 
than formerly, and they seem to have been constructed of different sub- 
stances and qualities. Candlesticks, made usually of the mixed metal 
called laton or latten (an alloy of brass), were found in all houses ; 
they appear to have been still mostly made with a spike on which the 
candle was stuck, and sometimes they were ornamented, and furnished 
with mottoes. John Baret, who made his will at Bury, in 1463, pos- 
sessed a " candylstykke of laten with a pyke," two " lowe candylstikkez 
of a forth " {i.e. to match), and three " candelstykkes of laton where- 
upon is wretyn grace me governed A testament dated in 1493 enumer- 
ates "a lowe candilstyke of laton, 0011 of my candelstykes, and ij. high 
candilstykes of laton." In the will of Agas Herte of Bury, in 1522, 
" ij. belle canstykes and a lesser canstyke," occurs twice, so that they 
seem to have formed two sets, and there is a third mention of " ij. bell 
canstykes." We also find mention at this time of double candlesticks, 
which were probably intended to be placed in an elevated position to 
give light to the whole apartment. Our inventory of the contents of 
the parlour contains " a branch of latten, with four lights," which was 
no doubt intended for this purpose of lighting the whole room (a sort 
of chandelier), and appears to have been identical with the candlebeam, 

not unfrequently mentioned in the old 
inventories. A widow of Bury, named 
Agnes Ridges, who made her will in 1492, 
mentions " my candylbeme that hangyth 
in my hall with vj. bellys of laton standyng 
thereon," i.e. six cups in which the candles 
were placed. Our cut No. 256 repre- 
sents a candlebeam with four lights. It is 
slung round a simple pulley in the ceiling, 
by a string which was fixed to the ground. 
It is taken from a manuscript of the 
" Traite' des Tournois " (treatise of tourna- 
ments), by King Rene, in the National 
Library at Paris, No. 8352 ; and as the 
scene is represented as taking place in a princely hall, which is fitted 
up for a festive entertainment, we may take it as a curious proof of the 




No. 236. — A Candlebeam. 



CANDLE AND TORCH-HOLDERS. 



387 



rudeness which was still mixed up with the magnificence of the fifteenth 
century. In a fine illumination in a manuscript of Froissart in the 
British Museum (MS. Reg. 18 E. 2), representing the fatal masque at 
the court of Charles VI. of France, in 1393, in which several of the 
courtiers were burned to death, we have, in the king's palace, a chande- 
lier exactly like that in our last cut, except that each candlestick on the 
beam contains two candles— a " double candlestick." This manuscript 
is of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It had been the custom, 
on festive occasions, or in ceremonies where large apartments required 




No. 257. — Candle and Torch-holders. 

to be lighted, to do this by means of torches which servants held in 
their hands. This custom was very common, and is frequently spoken 
of or alluded to in the mediaeval writers. Nevertheless, the inconveni- 
ence and even danger attending it, led to various plans for superseding 
it. One of these was, to fix up against the walls of the room frames for 
holding the torches, of which an example is given in the accompanying 
cut No. 257, representing a torch-frame, still preserved in the Palazzo 
Strozzi at Florence. One of the group, it will be observed, has a long 
spike, intended to hold a large candle. Candlesticks fixed to the wall 



388 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



in various manners are seen in manuscripts of the fifteenth century ; 
and an example is given in our cut No. 258, taken from a part of the 
same illumination of Froissart mentioned before. The candle is here 
placed before a little image, on the upper part of the fireplace, but 




No. 258. — Ladies Seated. 



whether this was for a religious purpose or not, is not clear. In this 
cut, the three princesses are seated on the large chair or settle, which is 
turned with its back to the fire. This important article of furniture is 
now found in the parlour as well as in the hall. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

In-door Life and Conversation. — Pet Animals. — The Dance. — Rere- 
* Slippers. — Illustrations from the" Nancy" Tapestry. 

AS people began to have less taste for the publicity of the old hall, 
they gradually withdrew from it into the parlours for many of 
the purposes to which the hall was originally devoted, and thus the 
latter lost much of its former character. The parlour was now the place 
commonly used for the family .meals. In a curious little treatise on 
the " most vyle and detestable use of dyce play," composed near the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, one of the interlocutors is made to 
say, " So down Ave came again," i.e. from the chambers above, " into the 
parlour, and found there divers gentlemen, all strangers to me ; and what 
should I say more, but to dinner we went." The dinner hour, we learn 
' from this same tract, was then at the hour of noon ; " the table," we are 
told, " was fair spread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnished with 
much goodly plate." The cupboard seems now to have been considered 
a necessary article of furniture in the parlour; it had originally belonged 
to the hall, and was of simple construction. One of the great objects of 
ostentation in a rich man's house was his plate ; which at dinner-time 
he brought forth, and caused to be spread on a table in sight of his 
guests ; afterwards, to exhibit the plate to more advantage, the table was 
made with shelves, or steps, on which the different articles could be 
arranged in rows one above another. It was called in French and Anglo- 
Norman a buffet, or a dressoir (dresser), the latter name, it is said, being 
given to it because on it the different articles were dresses, or arranged. 
' The English had, in their own language, no special name for this article 
of furniture, so that they called it literally a cup-board or board for the 
cups. In course of time, and especially when it was removed from the 



39° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



hall into the parlour, this article was made more elaborately, and doors 
were added to it, for shutting up the plate when not in use. It thus 
became equivalent to our modern sideboard. We have seen a figure 
of a cupboard of this more complicated structure in a cut in our last 
chapter ; and we shall have others of different forms in our next. 




No. 259. — A Sick-Room. 

Our cut No. 259 is a good representation of the interior of a parlour 
furnished with the large seat, or settle, and with rather an elaborate and 
elegant cupboard. The latter, however, does not belong to the picture 
itself, having been introduced from another in the same manuscript by 
Mr Henry Shaw, in his beautiful work, " The Dresses and Decorations of 



THE PARLOURS. 391 



the Middle Ages," from which it is here taken. It is found in a fine 
manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 D. 1), containing the 
French translation of the " Historia Scholastica" of Peter Comestor, 
and written in the year 1470. The subject of this illumination is taken 
from the scriptural story of Tobit, who here lies sick and blind on the 
settle, having just despatched his son Tobias on his journey to the city 
of Rages. The lady cooking is no doubt intended for his wife Anna ; 
it will be observed that she is following the directions of a book. 
Cookery-books and books of medicinal receipts were now common. 
The kettle is suspended over the fire by a jack of a construction that 
occurs not unfrequently in the manuscripts of this period. The settle 
is placed with its back to the window, which is covered with a large 
curtain. 

As the parlours saved the domestic arrangements of the household 
from the too great publicity of the hall, so, on the other hand, they 
relieved the bedchambers from much of what had previously been 
transacted in them, and thus rendered them more private. In the 
poem of the " Lady Bessie," when the Earl of Derby and Humphrey 
Brereton visit the young princess, they are introduced to her in her 
bower, or chamber, but she immediately conducts the latter into the 
parlour, in order to converse with him — 

She took him in her arms, and kissed him times three ; 

"Welcome," she said, "Humphrey Brereton; 
How hast thou spedd in the west countrey ? 

I pray thee tell me quickly and anon." 
Into a parlour they went from thence, 

There were no more but hee and shee. 

The female part of the family now passed in the parlour much of the 
time which had been formerly passed in their chambers. It was often 
their place of work. Young ladies, even of great families, were brought 
up not only strictly, but even tyrannically, by their mothers, who kept 
them constantly at work, exacted from them almost slavish deference 
and respect, and even counted upon their earnings. The parental 
authority was indeed carried to an almost extravagant extent. There 
are some curious instances of this in the correspondence of the Paston 
family. Agnes Paston, the wife of Sir William Paston, the judge, 
appears to have been a very harsh mother. At the end of June 1454, 



39 2 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Elizabeth Clere, a kinswoman who appears to have lived in great 
intimacy with the family, sent to John Paston, the lady's eldest son, 
the following account of the treatment of his sister Elizabeth, who was 
of marriageable age, and for whom a man of the name of Scroope had 
been proposed as a husband. " Therefore, cousin," writes Jane Clere, 
" meseemeth he were good for my cousin your sister, without that ye 
might get her a better ; and if ye can get a better, I would advise you 
to labour it in as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so 
great a sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, 
whosoever come, nor even may see nor speak with my man, nor with ser- 
vants of her mother's, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than 
she meaneth ; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once 
in the week, or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and her head broken 
in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by 
friar Newton in great counsel, and prayeth me that I would send to you 
a letter of her heaviness, and pray you to be her good brother, as her 
trust is in you." In spite of her anxiety to be married, Elizabeth Paston 
did not succeed at this time, but she was soon afterwards transferred 
from her paternal roof to the household of the Lady Pole. It was still 
the custom to send young ladies of family to the houses of the great to 
learn manners, and it was not only a matter of pride and ostentation to 
be thus surrounded by a numerous train, but the noble lady whom they 
served did not disdain to receive payment for their board, as well as 
employing them in profitable work. In a memorandum of errands to 
London, written by Agnes Paston on the 28th of January 1457, one is 
a message to " Elizabeth Paston that she must use herself to work 
readily, as other gentlewomen do, and somewhat to help herself there- 
with. Item, to pay the Lady Pole twenty-six shillings and eightpence 
for her board." Margaret Paston, the wife of John Paston, just men- 
tioned, and daughter-in-law of Agnes, seems to have been equally strict 
with her daughters. At the beginning of the reign of Edward IV., she 
wrote to her son John concerning his sister Anne, who had been placed 
in the house of a kinsman of the name of Calthorpe. " Since ye de- 
parted," she says, " my cousin Calthorpe sent me a letter complaining 
in his writing that forasmuch as he cannot be paid of his tenants as 
he hath been before this time, he proposeth to lessen his household, 



FEMALE MANNERS. 



393 



and to live the straitlier, wherefore he desireth me to purvey for 
your sister Anne ; he saith she waxeth high {grows tall), and it were 
time to purvey her a marriage. I marvel what causeth him to write so 
now, either she hath displeased him, or else he hath taken her with 
default; therefore I pray you commune with my cousin Clare at Lon- 
don, and weet {learn) how he is disposed to her-ward, and send me 
word, for I shall be fain to send for her, and with me she shall but lose 
her time, and without she will be the better occupied she shall oftentimes 
move {vex) me and put me in great inquietness ; remember what labour 




No. 260. — A Conversation Scene. 

I had with your sister, therefore do your part to help her forth, that 
may be to your worship and mine." There certainly appears here no 
great affection between mother and daughter. 

Among other lessons, the ladies appear to have been taught to be 
very demure and formal in their behaviour in company. Our cut No. 
260 represents a party of ladies and gentlemen in the parlour engaged 
in conversation. It is taken from an illumination in the manuscript of 
the romance of the " Comte d'Artois," formerly in the possession of M. 
Barrois. They are all apparently seated on benches, which seem in this 
instance to be made like long chests, and placed along the sides of the 



394 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



wall as if they served also for lockers. These appear to be the only- 
articles of furniture in the room. There is a certain conventional posi- 
tion in most of the ladies of the party, which has evidently been taught, 
even to the holding of the hands crossed. The four ladies with the 
gentlemen between them are no doubt intended to be the attendants 
on the lady of the house, holding towards her the position of Elizabeth 
and Anne Paston. We have precisely the same conventional forms in 
the next cut (No. 261), which is taken from an illumination in a manu- 
script of the " Legenda Aurea," in the National Library in Paris (No. 
6889). We see here the same demureness and formal crossing of the 
hands among the young ladies, in presence of their dame. It may be 
observed that, in almost all the contemporary pictures of domestic 
scenes, the men, represented as visitors, keep their hats on their heads. 




No. 261. — A Social Group of the Fifteenth Century. 



One of the most curious features in the first of these scenes is that of 
the cages, especially that of the squirrel, which is evidently made to turn 
round with the animal's motion, like squirrel-cages of the present day. 
We have now frequent allusions to the keeping of birds in cages ; and 
parrots, magpies, jays, and various singing birds, are often mentioned 
among domestic pets. During the earlier half of the century of which 
we are now more especially speaking, the poems of Lydgate furnish us 
with several examples. Thus, in that entitled " The Chorle and the 
Bird," we are told — 

The chorle {countryman) was gladde that he this birdde hadde take, 
Mery of chere, of looke, and of visage, 
And in al haste he cast for to make 



DOMESTIC PETS. 



395 



"Within his house a pratie litelle cage, 
And with hir songe to rejoice his corage. 

And in another of Lydgate's minor poems, it is said of Spring — 

Which sesoun prykethe (stirs up) fresshe corages, 
Rejoissethe beastys walkyng in ther pasture, 
Causith briddys to syngen in ther cages, 
Whan blood renewyth in every creature. 

In another illumination of a manuscript of the fourteenth century, in 

the Parisian National Library, we see a 

figure of. a lady carrying a cage with two 

birds in it. It is represented in our cut 

No. 262 — repeated here from p. 253. 

Among these, we find birds mentioned 

which are not now usually kept in cages. 

Thus, in a manuscript of the time of 

Edward IV., we find a receipt for food 

for that favourite bird of the mediaeval 

poets, the nightingale.* Small animals 

of various kinds were also tamed and 

kept in the house, either loose or in cages. 

The plot of some of the earlier fabliaux 

turns upon the practice of taming squirrels as pets, and keeping them in 

cages ; and this animal continued long to be an especial favourite, for 

its liveliness and activity. In one of the compartments of the curious 

tapestry of Nancy, of the fifteenth century, which has been engraved by 

M. Achille Jubinal, we see a lady with a tame squirrel in her hand, which 

she holds by a string, as represented in our next cut (No. 263). 

The parlour was now the room where the domestic amusements were 
introduced. The guest in the early tract on " Dyce Play," quoted in a 
former page, tells us, " And after the table was removed, in came one of 
the waiters with a fair silver bowl, full of dice and cards. Now, masters, 

* This receipt is curious enough to be given here ; it is as follows : — " Fyrst, take 
and geve hy'm yelow antes, otherwyse called pysmerys, as nere as ye may, and the 
white ante or pysmers egges be best bothe wynter and somer, ij. tymes of the day an 
handful of bothe. Also, geve hym of these sowes that crepe with many fete, and falle 
oute of howce rovys. Also, geve hym whyte wormes that breede betwene the barke 
and the tre." — Reliquia Antiques, vol. i. p. 203. 




No. 262. — Birds in Cage. 



396 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




No. 263. — Lady and Squirrel. 



quoth the goodman, who is so disposed, fall too." Gambling was 
carried to a great height during the fifteenth 
century, and was severely condemned by the 
moralists, but without much success. Dice 
were the older implements of play, and tables 
(or backgammon). A religious poem on saints' 
days, in a manuscript written about the year 
1460, warning against idle amusements, 
says — 

Also use not to pley at the dice ne at the tablis, 
Ne none maner gamys, uppon the holidais ; 
Use no tavernys where be jestis and fablis, 
Syngyng of lewde balettes, rondelettes, or virolais. 

After the middle of the fifteenth century, 
cards came into very general use ; and at the 
beginning of the following century, there was such a rage for card- 
playing, that an attempt was made early in the reign of Henry VIII. to 
restrict their use by law to the period of Christmas. When, however, 
people sat down to dinner at noon, and had no other occupation for the 
rest of the day, they needed amusement of some sort to pass the time ; 
and a poet of the fifteenth century observes truly — 

A man may dryfe forthe the day that long tyme dwellis 
With harpyng and pipyng, and other mery spellis, 
With gle, and wyth game. 

' Such amusements as these mentioned, with games of different kinds in 
which the ladies took part, and dancing, generally occupied the after- 
noon from dinner to supper, the hour of which latter meal seems usually 
to have been six o'clock. The favourite amusement was dancing. A 
family party at the dance is represented in our cut No. 264, from M. 
Barrois' manuscript of the " Comte d'Artois." The numerous dances 
which were now in vogue seem to have completely eclipsed the old 
carole, or round dance, and the latter word, which was a more general one, 
had displaced the former. The couple here on their legs are supposed 
to be performing one of the new and tasteful fashionable dances, which 
were much more lively than those of the earlier period ; some of them 
were so much so as to scandalise greatly the sage moralists of the time. 



THE NANCY TAPESTRY DRAMATISED. 



397 



The after-dinner amusements were resumed after supper ; and a practice 
had now established itself of prolonging the day's enjoyment to a late 
hour, and taking a second, or, as it was called, a rere-supper (arriere 
sonper\ which was called the banquet in France, where the three great 
meals were now the dinner, the supper, and the banquet, and dinner 
appears to have been considered as the least meal of the three. It was 
thus, probably, that, in course of time, dinner took the place of supper, 
and supper that of banquet. 

We have a very remarkable illustration of the extravagant living at 
table of the latter half of the fifteenth century, in the curious allegorical 
tapestry long preserved at Nancy, in Lorrain, and said by tradition, 




No. 264. — A Dance. 



probably with truth, to have been the ornament of the tent of Charles 
le Temeraire, Duke of Burgundy, when he laid siege to Nancy in 1477, 
and was defeated and slain. It is of Flemish workmanship, and no 
doubt pictures the manners of the Burgundian nobles and gentry. At 
that time the court of Burgundy was the model of the fashionable life of 
Western Europe. It happens, curiously enough, that a few years later 
a rather obscure French writer, named Nicole de La Chesnaye, compil- 
ing one of those allegorical dramas then so popular under the title of 
" Moralities," took the story of this tapestry as his subject, and has thus 
left us the full explanation of what might otherwise have been not easily 
understood. The title of this Morality is " La Nef de Sante " (the ship 



398 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

of health), and a second title is " La Condamnacion des Bancquetz " 
(the condemnation of banquets) ; and its object is to show the unhappy- 
consequences of the extravagance in eating and drinking which then 
prevailed. It opens with a conversation between three allegorical per- 
sonages named Dinner, Supper, and Banquet, who declare their inten- 
tion to lead joyous life evening and morning, and they resolve on 
imitating Passe-Temps (pastime) and Bonne-Compagnie (good com- 
pany). At this moment Bonne-Compagnie herself, who is described as 
a dashing damsel (gorriere damoiselle), enters with all her people, namely, 
Gourmandize (greediness), Friandize (daintiness), Passe-Temps, already 
mentioned, Je-Boy-a-Vous (I drink to you), Je-Pleige-d'Autant (I pledge 
the same), and Acoustumance (custom). Each names what he prefers 
in good cheer, and Bonne-Compagnie, to begin the day, orders a colla- 
tion, at which among other things are served damsons {primes de 
Dumas), which appear at this time to have been considered as deli- 
cacies. There is here a marginal direction to the purport that, if the 
Morality should be performed in the season when real damsons could 
not be had, the performers must have some made of wax to look like 
real ones. They now take their places at table, and while they are eat- 
ing, Je-Boy-a-Vous calls the attention of the company to the circum- 
stance that Gourmandize, in his haste to eat the damsons, had 
swallowed a snail. Passe-Temps next proposes a dance, and chooses 
for his partner the Lady Friandize, comparing her to Helen, and telling 
her that he was Paris. She, in reply, compares herself to Medea, and her 
partner to Jason. Then the musicians, " placed on a stage or some 
higher place," are to play a measure " pretty short." Dinner, Supper, 
and Banquet next make their appearance, and, addressing Bonne-Com- 
pagnie, offer their apology for entering without being invited ; but the 
lady receives them well, asks their names, and in return tells them 
those of her people. Dinner, to show his gratitude for this friendly re- 
ception, invites the whole party to go to his feast, which is just ready ; 
and Supper invites them to a second repast, and Banquet to a third. 
They accept the invitation of Dinner, and are served with, friture, brouet, 
potage, gros pates, &c. Meanwhile Supper and Banquet look upon the 
party from " some high window," and converse on the consequences 
likely to follow their excesses. This scene is represented in the first 



THE NANCY TAPESTRY DRAMATISED. 



399 



compartment of the tapestry, as it now exists (for it has undergone con- 
siderable mutilation), and is represented in our cut No. 265. It is a 
good picture of a seignorial repast of the fifteenth century. There are 
people at table besides those enumerated in the Morality, who are here 
indicated by their names : Passe-Temps at one end of the table, a lady 
to his left, and after her Je-Boy-a-Vous, who has Bonne-Compagnie by 
his side, and to her left Dinner, the host. To the right of Passe-Temps 




No. 265. — A Dinner-Party in Grand Ceremony. 

sits the Lady Gourmandize, and to her right Je-Vous-Pleige (I pledge 
you), and next to him Friandize. The cups in which they are drinking 
are flat-shaped, and appear, by the colours in the original, to be of glass, 
with the brims, and other parts in some, gilt. The minstrels, in the 
gallery, are' playing with trumpets. Among the attendants, we see the 
court fool, with his bauble, who had now become an ordinary, and 
almost a necessary, personage in the household of the rich ; it was the 
result of an increasing taste for the coarse buffoonery which characterised 



4 oo THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

an unrefined state of society. The court fool was licensed to utter 
with impunity whatever came to his thought, however mordant or how- 
ever indecent. Beside him are two valets with dogs, which appear to 
have been usually admitted to the hall, and to have eaten the refuse on 
the spot. A window above gives us a view of the country, with build- 
ings in the distance, and Supper and Banquet looking in upon the com- 
pany. An inscription in the upper corner to the right tells us how these 
two personages came slyly to look at the assembly, and how through 
envy they conspired to take vengeance upon the feasters — 

Soupper et Bancquet 
Vindrent l'assemblee adviser, 
Dont par envie prestement 
Compindrent de viengence user. 

The Morality next introduces the Diseases who are to be the executors 
of the vengeance of Supper and Banquet, and who, according to the 
stage-directions, are to be dressed " very strangely, so that you would 
hardly know whether they are women or men." These are Apoplexy, 
Paralysis, Pleurisy, Cholic, Quinsy, Dropsy, Jaundice, Gravel, and 
Gout. At the end of this scene, Supper and Banquet address them- 
selves to these people, and ask them to undertake an assault on Bonne- 
Compagnie and the other guests of Dinner ; and they consent at once, 
and Supper places them in an ambuscade in his dwelling. Meanwhile 
the feast ends, and Bonne-Compagnie says grace, and orders the player 
on the lute to perform his duty, whereupon " the instrument sounds, 
and the three men shall lead out the three women, and shall dance 
whatever dance they please, while Bonne-Compagnie remains seated." 
Supper and Banquet then present themselves in turn to invite Bonne- 
Compagnie and her people, and they go first to Supper, who receives 
them with extraordinary hospitality. But Supper was a wicked traitor ; 
and the stage-directions inform us that, while the guests were enjoying 
themselves, his agents, the Diseases, were to be introduced watching 
them through a window. As soon as the substantial viands are eaten, 
Supper goes to order what was called the issue, or dessert ; and in his 
absence Bonne-Compagnie orders the minstrels to play an air, and they 
obey. While the dessert is preparing, Supper goes to the Diseases, to 
ask if they are ready, and they arm and attack the guests, overthrowing 



THE NANCY TAPESTRY DRAMATISED. 401 

tables and benches, and treating everybody with great cruelty. After- 
some other scenes, Banquet conies to announce that his feast is ready, 
condoles with the sufferers on the treatment they had received from 
Supper, though he is meditating still greater treachery himself, and they 
go and feast with him. The Diseases, ready at his command, make a 
much more fatal' attack upon the guests. 

Banquet's feast forms the second compartment of the tapestry of 
Nancy in its present state, and is represented in our cut No. 266. 
When compared with the Morality, it presents some variations. In 
front, Banquet is standing before the table, opposite to Je-Boy-a-Vous 
and Je-Pleige-d'Autant, and appears to be replying to Bonne-Compagnie, 
who is seated between Passe-Temps and Acoustumance. Further to 
the left Banquet appears again, with his hand on his sword, addressing 
the Diseases, who are at the entrance of the hall, waiting for his signal 
for the attack. At the lower corner on the left we see Supper, talking 
with another important personage, probably intended to represent 
Dinner. Above, to the right, through a window, we see Banquet again, 
with one of his attendants fastening on his armour, while another holds 
his casque, which he has not yet placed on his head. The first of the 
inscriptions in this compartment of the tapestry, which is on the left, 
tells how, while the guests are feasting in all jollity, Banquet and his 
rout arm and come to slaughter the whole assembly — 

Chiere ilz tyrent joyeulsement, 
Y estant Bancquet et la route 
Qui s'armerent, et la proprement 
Occirent l'assemblee toute. 

The second inscription consists of eight lines moralising on the final 

ruin which often falls on those who make enjoyment the business of 

their lives — 

Les trois folz ont grant volonte 

De cherche[r] leur malle meschance ; 

Quant on a bien ris et chante, 

A la fin fault tourner la chance. 

Ha ! vous vellez avoir plaisance ! 

Bien l'aure vous ung tandis ; 

Mes gens quy prenent leur aisence, 

En fin se treuvent plus mauldiz. 

It is remarkable that these eight lines, taken from the tapestry, are 



2 c 



4-02 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



introduced into the Morality, and placed in the mouth of the fool at the 
end of the first scene. 




It will be remarked at once that there is a much greater display of 
luxury in the banquet-scene than in the dinner-scene. Upon the table 



THE RERE-SUPPER. 4°3 



are two peacocks, each with a shield hung to its neck, no doubt to show 
the armorial bearings of the host ; a boar's head, dressed in the most 
fashionable manner; a subtilty, representing a ship filled with birds, 
surrounded by a sea full of fishes, and having a tall mast, with a sail 
made of silk and ermine, and surmounted by a figure of a naked female, 
intended probably to represent the goddess Venus. There are also on 
the table four candles of coloured wax. A noble dresser stands against 
the wall, covered with vessels of gold and of glass, but the metal far 
predominates. The minstrels are standing apparently on the floor on 
a level with the guests, and consist of a man playing on the cittern or 
lute, a harper, and one who plays on the pipe and drum, the latter 
instrument a substitute for the tabor. The valets with the dogs are 
again introduced, but we miss the court fool. 

The remaining portions of the tapestry represent the attack of the 
Diseases, and the great havoc they made among the guests. 

The banquet was known in England by that name, as well as by the 
name of rere-supper. In the curious English Morality play, entitled 
" The Interlude of the Four Elements," printed early in the sixteenth 
century, the same distinction is made between the three meals as in the 
French Morality described above. Sensual-appetite, one of the char- 
acters in the piece, leads Humanity to the tavern to dine, and orders a 
dinner of three courses, with a choice variety of wines. As they are 
leaving after dinner, the taverner reminds them that they were to return 
to supper; and then Humanity proposes a cup of "new" wine, as 
though wine were then valued for being new. Food and liquor were 
formerly adulterated in a more dishonest manner even than in modern 
times, and the taverner answers the demand jokingly — 



Ye shall have wyne as newe as can be, 
For I may tell you in pryvyte 
Hit was brued but yester nyght. 

But he immediately adds — 

But than I have for your apetyte 
A cup of wyne of olde claret ; 
There is no better, by this lyght. 

After supper they go to dance, and meanwhile Sensual-appetite goes 
to prepare the banquet — 



404 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

I shall at the towne agayne 

Prepare for you a banket, 

Of metys that be most delycate, 

And most pleasaunt drynkes and wynes therate, 

That is possyble to get. 

Which shall be in a chamber feyre 

Preparyd poynt devyse {in perfection), 

With damaske water made so well 

That all the howse thereof shall smell 

As it were Paradyse. 

In " Acolastus," a work by the grammarian Palsgrave, published in 
1540, the banquet is still identified with the rere-supper, when he speaks 
of " the rere-supper, or banket, where men syt downe to drynke and 
eate agayne after their meate." And again, still later, Higins, in his 
" Nomenclator," published in 1585, explains the Latin word fiocoznium 
by " a reare-supper, or a banket after supper." The term rere-supper 
was in use throughout the fifteenth century. An English vocabulary of 
that century speaks of a meal between dinner and supper, under the 
name of " a myd-dyner under-mete," the same which, no doubt, was 
called by a French word a bever, as consisting especially in taking a 
drink, and which, removed to the time between breakfast and dinner, 
is now called a luncheon. 

In the introduction to Lydgate's " Story of Thebes," which is 
given as a continuation of the " Canterbury Tales," the poet pretends 
to have arrived at the inn in Canterbury when it was occupied by the 
pilgrims, who invite him to sup with them, and he joins their company. 
" Our host," who is the leader of the pilgrims, offers him his place at 
their supper heartily — 

Praying you {he says) to suppe with us this night, 
And ye shall have made, at your devis, 
A great pudding, or a round hagis, 
A French moile, a tansie, or a froise. 

These appear to have been the usual favourite dishes at an ordinary 
supper of this date (the first half of the fifteenth century). The hagis 
appears to have been much the same dish as the Scottish haggis of the 
present day. The moile was a dish made of marrow and grated bread. 
The tansie was a kind of omelet, resembling apparently what the French 
now call an omelette aux fines herbes ; while the froise had small strips of 



THE DINNER. 



405 



bacon in it — an omelette au lai'd. This latter was a very favourite dish 
among the monks. After supper, the guests, or at least some of them, 
are represented as taking " strong nottie ale " before going to bed. 
They rise early, "anon as it is day," and start on their return towards 
London ; and they take no meal before dinner, having it 

Fully in purpose to come to dinere 
Unto Ofspring, and breake there our fast. 

There is a longer preface to the supplementary tale of " Beryn," 
written about the same date as the " Story of Thebes," and printed in 
the edition of Chaucer's works by Urry, in which the divisions of the 
day are tolerably well described. The pilgrims there arrived at their 
destination in Canterbury " at mydmorowe," which is interpreted in 
the glossaries as meaning nine o'clock in the forenoon, and then took 
their lodgings, " ordeyned " their dinner, and, while it was preparing, 
went to make their offerings to the shrine of St Thomas in the cathedral 
church. Meanwhile the Pardoner had separated from the company, 
and engaged in a low intrigue with the " tapster," or barmaid, who offers 
him a drink, but he tells her he had not yet broken his fast — we are to 
conclude that this was the case with the rest of the company — and 

She start into the town, and fet {fetched) a py al hote. 

Meat-pies appear to have been very common articles of food in the 
Middle Ages, and to have been kept always ready at the cooks' shops. 
The offerings seem to have taken but a small space of time, and then — 

They set their signys upon their hedes, and som oppon their capp, 
And sith to the dyner-ward they gan for to stapp (step) ; 
Every man in his degre wissh (washed) and toke his sete, 
As they wer wont to doon at soper and at mete ; 
And wer in silence for a tyme, tyl good ale gan arise. 

It appears, therefore, that people did not hold conversation while eating, 
but that the talk and mirth began with the liquor, whether ale or wine. 
It was then agreed that they should remain that day in Canterbury, 
and all sup together at night — 

" Then al this after-mete I hold it for the best 

To sport and pley us," quod the hoost, " ech man as hym lest (likes), 

And go by tyme to soper, and to bed also, 

So mo we we erly rysen, our jorney for to do." 



406 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Accordingly they all walk forth into the city, where the knight, who with 

his son had put on fresh gowns, took the latter to the town walls to 

explain to him their strength, and the character of the defences ; and as 

many of the rest as had changes of apparel with them imitated their 

example, and they separated in parties, according to their different 

tastes. The monk, the parson, and the friar, went to visit some clerical 

acquaintance, and indulged in spiced wine. The ladies remained at 

home — 

The wyfe of Bath was so wery, she had no wyl to walk ; 

She toke the priores by the honde, "Madam, wol ye stalk 

Pryvely into the garden to se the herbis growe ? 

And after with our hostis wife in her parlour rowe {talk) ? 

I wol gyve yowe the wyne, and ye shul me also ; 

For tyl we go to soper we have naught ellis to do." 

The prioress assents to this proposal — 

and forth gon they wend, 



Passing forth sofftly into the herbery ; 

For many a herb grew for sewe (pottage) and surgery ; 

And all the aleys fair and parid, and raylid, and ymakid ; 

The sauge and the isope yfrethid and istakid ; 

And othir beddis by and by fresh ydight, 

For comers to the hooste right a sportful sight. 

When the guests reassembled, they agreed that the knight should be 
their " marshall " of the table, and he ordered them all to wash, and 
then appointed them to their seats, that they might be properly seated 
together, for this was part of his duty. They thus sat two and two, each 
couple, no doubt, at one dish — 

They wissh (washed), and sett right as he bad, eche man wyth his fere, 

And begonne to talk of sportis and of chere 

That they had the aftir-mete whiles they wer out ; 

For othir occupacioune, tyll they wer servid about, 

They had not at that tyme, but eny man kitt (cut) a loff (loaf). 

Thus it would appear that nothing eatable was as yet placed on the 
table but bread. Presently, the supper was served round to them, of 
which there was only one " service," out of courtesy on the part of the 
rich members of the company towards those who were poor, as there 
was to be an equal division of the expenses of the supper. In return, 
the highest places of the table were yielded to the persons of best estate, 
and these, as an acknowledgment, gave a cup of wine round at their 



DRINKING BY THE MOON. 407 



own expense, and then left the table to retire to their beds. But the 
less genteel of the company, the miller and the cook, with the sompnour 
the yeoman, the reeve, and the manciple, remained " drinking by the 
moon," — that is, they had no candle. There was, however, one candle 
in the bedroom, which seems to have served to light the whole company, 
— for it is evident that they all slept in beds in one room, — and this 
candle was only put out when they were all gone to bed, which was the 
moment the Pardoner awaited to steal away and pursue his intrigue. 
Next morning they were out of their beds so early that they left the 
town on their homeward journey at sunrise. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Chamber and its Furniture and Uses, — Beds. — Hutches and Coffers. 
— The Toilette; Mirrors. 

THE chambers were now, except in smaller houses, mostly above 
the ground-floor ; and, as I have already observed, the privacy 
of the chamber was much greater than formerly. In the poem of "Lady 
Bessy," quoted in a former chapter (the whole poem is given in Mr 
Halliwell's privately printed " Palatine Anthology "), when the Earl of 
Derby was plotting with the Lady Bessy for calling in the Earl of Rich- 
mond, he proposed to repair secretly to her in her chamber, in order to 
prepare the letters — 

"We must depart {separate), lady," the earle said then ; 

" Wherefore keep this matter secretly, 
And this same night, betwix nine and ten, 

In your chamber I think to be. 
Look that you make all things ready, 

Your maids shall not our councell hear, 
For I will bring no man with me 

But Humphrey Brereton, my true esquire. " 
He took his leave of that lady fair, 

And to her chamber she went full light, 
And for all things she did prepare, 

Both pen and ink, and paper white. 

The earl, on his part — 

unto his study went, 

Forecasting with all his might 
To bring to pass all his intent ; 

He took no rest till it was night, 
And when the stars shone fair and bright, 

He him disguised in strange mannere ; 
He went unknown of any wight, 

No more with him but his esquire. 



THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 



409 



And when he came her chamber near, 

Full privily there can he stand ; 
To cause the lady to appeare 

He made a sign with his right hand. 
And when the lady there him wist, 

She was as glad as she might he ; 
Charcoals in chimneys there were cast, 

Candles on sticks standing full high. 
She opened the wickett, and let him in, 

And said, " Welcome, lord and knight soe free ! " 
A rich chair was set for him, 

And another for that fair lady ; 
They ate the spice, and drank the wine, 

He had all things at his intent. 

The description given in these lines agrees perfectly with the repre- 
sentations of chambers in the illuminated manuscripts of the latter 




No. 267 — Interior of the Chamber. 

part of the fifteenth century, when the superior artistic skill of the 
illuminators enabled them to draw interiors with more of detail than 
in former periods. We have almost .invariably the chimney, and one 
"rich chair/' if not more. In our cut No. 267, we have a settle in 
the chamber, which is turned to the fire, and a chair beside the 
bed. This picture is taken from a manuscript of the early French 
translation of Josephus, in the National Library in Paris (No. 7015), 



4io 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



and represents the death of the Emperor Nero, as described by that 
writer. All the furniture of this chamber is of a superior description. 
The large chair by the bedside is of very elegant design; and the settle, 
which is open at the back, is ornamented with carved panels. Our next 
cut (No. 268), taken from a manuscript of Lydgate's metrical Life of 
St Edmund (MS. Harl. No. 2278, fol. 13, v°), represents the birth of 
that saint. This room is more elaborately furnished than the former. 




No. 268. — The Nursing Chamber. 

The fittings of the bed are richer ; the chimney is more ornamental in 
its character, and is curious as having three little recesses for holding 
candlesticks, cups, and other articles ; and we have a well-supplied 
cupboard, though of simple form, From the colours in the manuscript, 
all the vessels appear to be of gold, or of silver-gilt. The seat before 
the fire in this cut (No. 268) seems to be the hutch, or chest, which in 
Nos. 272 and 273 we shall see placed at the foot of the bed, from which 
it is here moved to serve the occasion. 



THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 411 

The lady seated on this chest appears to be wrapping up the new-born 
infant in swaddling-clothes ; a custom which, as I have remarked on a 
former occasion, and as we shall see again farther on, prevailed universally 
till a comparatively recent period. Infants thus wrapped up are fre- 
quently seen in the illuminated manuscripts ; and their appearance is 
certainly anything but picturesque. We have an exception in one of 
the sculptures on the columns of the Hotel de Ville at Brussels (repre- 
sented in our cut No. 269), which also furnishes us with a curious ex- 
ample of a cradle of the latter part of the fifteenth century. 

It will, no doubt, have been remarked that in these cuts we observe 
no' traces of carpets on the floor. In our cut No. 267, the floor is evi- 
dently boarded ; but more generally, as in our cuts Nos. 268, 271, and 




No. 269. — A Cradle. 

272, it appears chequered, or laid out in small squares, which may be 
intended to represent tiles, or perhaps parquetry. There is more evi- 
dence of tapestried or painted walls ; although this kind of ornamenta- 
tion is only used partially, and chiefly in the dwellings of the richer 
classes. The walls in the chamber in cut No. 268 appear to be painted. 
In the same cut we have an example of an ornamental mat. 

The most important article of furniture in the chamber was the bed, 
which began now to be made much more ornamental than in previous 
times. We have seen in the former period the introduction of the canopy 
and its curtains, under which the head of the bed was placed. The 
celure, or roof, of the canopy was now often enlarged, so as to extend 
over the whole bed ; and it, as well as the tester, or back, was often 
adorned with the arms of the possessor, with religious emblems, with 



4 i2 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

flowers, or with some other ornament. There were also sometimes 
costers, or ornamental cloths for the sides of the bed. The curtains, 
sometimes called by the French word ridels, were attached edgeways to 
the tester, and were suspended sometimes by rings, so as to draw back- 
wards and forwards along a pole; but more frequently, to judge by the illu- 
minations, they were fixed to the celure in the same manner as to the tester, 
and were drawn up with cords. At the two corners of the celure portions 
of curtain were left hanging down like bags. The curtains which draw 
up are represented in our cuts Nos. 270 and 271. Those in cuts Nos. 
272 and 273, if not in Nos. 267 and 268, are evidently drawn along poles 
with rings. The latter method is thus alluded to in the old metrical 
romance of " Sir Degrevant " — 

That was a marvelle thynge, 
To se the riddels hynge, 
With many red golde rynge 
That thame up bare. 

The celure and tester were fixed to the wall and ceiling of the apart- 
ment, and were not in any way attached to the bed itself; for the large 
four-post bedsteads were introduced in the sixteenth century. In some 
illuminations the bed is seen placed within a square compartment sepa- 
rated from the room by curtains which seem to be suspended from the 
roof. This appears to have been the first step towards the more modern 
four-post bedsteads. In one of the plates in D'Agincourt's " Histoire 
de TArt " (Peinture, pi. 109), taken from a Greek fresco of the twelfth or 
thirteenth century in a church at Florence, we have the curtains arranged 
thus in a square tent in the room, where the cords are not suspended 
from the roof, but supported by four corner-posts. The bed is placed 
within, totally detached from the surrounding posts and curtains. The 
space thus left between the bed and the curtains was perhaps what was 
originally called in French the ruelle (literally, the " little street ") of the 
bed, a term which was afterwards given to the space between the 
curtains of the bed and the wall, which held rather an important place 
in old French chamber life, and especially in the stories of chamber 
intrigue. 

The bedstead itself was still a very simple structure of wood, as shown 
in our cut No. 270, which represents the bed of a countess. It is taken 



BEDS. 



413 



from the manuscript of the romance 'of the " Comte d'Artois," which has 
already furnished subjects for our previous chapters on the manners of 
the fifteenth century. The lady's footstool is no less rude than the bed- 
stead. The bed here evidently consists of a hard mattress. It was still 
often made of straw, and the bed is spoken of in the glossaries as placed 
upon a stramentum, which is interpreted by the English word litter : 
but feather-beds were certainly in general use during the whole of the 




No. 270. — A Bed of the Fifteenth Century. 

fifteenth century. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, Chaucer 
(Dreme, v. 250) thus described a very rich bed — 

Of downe of pure dovis white 

I wol yeve him a fethir bed, 

Rayid with gold, and right well cled 

In fine blacke sattin d'outremere, 

And many a pilowe, and every bere {pillow cover) 

Of clothe of Raines to slepe on softe ; 

Him thare (need) not to turnen ofte. 

Agnes Hubbard, a lady of Bury, in Suffolk, who made her will in 141 8, 
left, among other things, " one feather-bed " (unum ledum de filiwiis). 
A rich townsman of the same place bequeathed, in 1463, to his niece, 
" certeyne stuffe of ostihnent," among which he enumerates " my grene 
hanggyd bedde steynyd with my armys therin, that hanggith in the 
chambyr ovir kechene. with the curtynez, the grene keveryng longgyng 
therto ; another coverlyte, ij. blankettes, ij. peyre of good shetes, the 



414 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

trampsoun, the costerys of that cha'mbyr and of the drawgth chambyr 
next, tho that be of the same soort, a grete pilve {pillow) and a smal 
pilve; the fethirbeed is hire owne that hire maistresse gaf hire at London." 
After enumerating other articles of different kinds, the testator proceeds — 
" And I geve hire the selour and the steynyd clooth of the coronacion of 
Our Lady, with the clothes of myn that long to the bedde that she hath 
loyen {lain) in, and the beddyng in the draught chamber for hire ser- 
vaunth to lyn in ; and a banker of grene and red lying in hire chambyr 
with the longe chayer {a settle, probably) ; and a stondyng coffre and a 
long coffre in the drawth chambyr." William Honyboorn, also of Bury, 
bequeathed to his wife in 1493, "my best ffether bedde with the traun- 
some, a whyte selour and a testour theron, with iij. white curteyns therto, 
a coverlight white and blewe lyeng on the same bedde, with the blan- 
kettes." The same man leaves to his daughter, " a ffether bedde next 
the best, a materas lyeng under the same, iiij. peyr shetys, iij. pelowes, a 
peyr blankettes." John Coote, who made his will at Bury in 1502, left 
to his wife, for term of her life, " alle my plate, brasse, pewter, hanggynges, 
celers, testers, fetherbeddes, traunsoms, coverlytes, blankettes, shetes, 
pelows, and all other stuff of hussold {household) ; " and afterwards be- 
queaths these articles separately to his son and daughter, after their 
mother's death : — " I will that William Coote have my beste hanged 
bede, celer, testor, and curteyns longgyng to the same, the beste fether- 
bede, the beste coverlyght, the beste peyer of blankettes, the beste peyer 
shetes ; and Alys Coote to have the next hanged bede, celer, and testour, 
wyth the ij de fetherbede, blankettes, and the ij de peyer shetes." In the 
will of Anne Barett, of Bury, dated in 1504, we read, " Item, I bequeth 
to Avyse my servaunte x. marc, a ffether bed, a traunsom, a payre shetes, 
a payre blankettes, coverlyght." Lastly, the will of Agar Herte, a 
widow of the same town, made in 1522, contains the following items : — 
" Item, I bequethe to Richard Jaxson, my son, a ffetherbed, ij. trawnsoms, 
a matras, ij. pelowes, iiij. payer of schetes, a payer of blankettes, and a 
coveryng of arasse, and a secunde coverlyght, a selour and a testour 
steynyd with mowers, and iij. curtenys;" . . . "Item, I bequethe to 
Jone Jaxson, my dowghter, a fetherbed, a matras, a bolster, ij. pelowes, 
iiij. payer of schetes, a payer of blankettes, a coverlyght with ffiowre de 
lyce, a selour and a testour steynyd with Seynt Kateryn at the hed and 



BEDDING. 415 



the crusifix on the selour, ... a secunde coverlyght, ij. pelow-beris 
(pillow-covers), the steynyd clothes abowte the chamber where I ly ; " 
..." Item, I bequethe to Fraunces Wrethe a ffetherbed, a bolster, a 
payer of blankettes, my best carpet, a new coverlyght with fflowers, ij. 
payer of schetes, ij. pelows with the berys." 

These extracts from only one set of wills are sufficient to show the 
great advance which our forefathers had made during the fourteenth 
century in the comfort and richness of their beds, and how cautious we 
ought to be in receiving general observations on the condition of previous 
ages by those who write at a subsequent period. I make this observation 
in allusion to the account so often quoted from Harrison, who, in the 
description of England written in Essex during the reign of Elizabeth, 
and inserted in Holinshed's " Chronicles," informs us that " our fathers 
(yea, and we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on 
rough mats, covered onelie with a sheet, under coverlets made of dag- 
swain,* or hopharlots (I use their own terms), and a good round log 
under their heads instead of a bolster. If it were so that our fathers, or 
the good-man of the house, had, within seven years after his marriage, 
purchased a matteres, or flocke bed, and thereto a sacke of chafife to reste 
his heade upon, he thought himselfe to be as well lodged as the lord of 
the towne, so well were they contented. Pillowes, said they, were 
thought meete onelie for women in child-bed. As for servants, if they 
had anie sheet above them it was well, for seldom had they anie under 
their bodies to keepe them from the pricking straws that ran oft through 
the canvas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides." A description 
like this could only apply to the lower classes in society, who had as yet 
participated but little in the march of social improvement. 

As the privacy of the chamber had become greater, it seems now to 
have been much less common in private mansions for several people to 
sleep in the same room, which appears more rarely to have had more 
than one bed. But a bed of a new construction had now come into 
use, called a truckle or trundle bed. This was a smaller bed which 

* Dagswain was a sort of rough material of which the commoner sorts of coverlets 
were made. A hap-harlot, or hop-harlot, was also a very coarse kind of coverlet. 
Harlot was a term applied to a low class of vagabonds, the ribalds, who wandered 
from place to place in search of a living ; and the name appears to have been given 
to this rug as being only fit to be the lot or hap of such people. 



416 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



rolled under the larger bed, and was designed usually for a valet, or 
servant. The illuminations in the manuscript of the romance of the 
" Comte d'Artois," already quoted more than once, furnish us with the 
early example of a truckle-bed represented in our cut No. 271. The 
Count d'Artois lies in the bed under the canopy, while the truckle-bed 
is occupied by his valet (in this case, his wife in disguise). The truckle- 
bed is more frequently mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. Every reader will remember the speech of mine host of the 
Garter, in the " Merry Wives of Windsor" (act iv. sc. 5), who says of 
Falstaff 's room, " There 's his chamber, his house, his castle, his stand- 
ing-bed and truckle-bed." It was the place allotted to the squire, when 




/ / 



\\\\\\\ 



/ / / / / I 1 \ \ \ \ \ \ \~1 

No. 271. — A Truckle-bed. 

accompanying the knight on " adventures." So in Hudibras (part ii. 

canto ii.) — 

When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aking, 
'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, 
Began to rub his drowsy eyes, 
And from his couch prepared to rise, 
Resolving to despatch the deed 
He vow'd to do, with trusty speed ; 
But first, with knocking loud and bawling, 
He roused the squire, in truckle lolling. 
* 
In the English universities, the master-of-arts had his pupil to sleep in 

his truckle-bed. 

The chamber, as the most private part of the house, was stored with 



HUTCHES AND COFFERS. 



417 



chests and coffers, in which the person who occupied it kept his money, 
his deeds and private papers, and his other valuables. Margaret 
Paston, writing from Norwich to her husband about the year 1459, gives 
a curious account of the preparations for his reception at home. " I 
have," she says, " taken the measure in the drawte chamber, there as 
ye would your coffers and your cowntewery {supposed to mean a desk for 
writing), should be set for the while, and there is no space beside the 
bed, though the bed were removed to the door, for to set both your 
board {table) and your coffers there, and to have space to go and sit 




No. 272. — A Bedroom Scene. 

beside ; wherefore I have purveyed that ye shall have the same drawte 
chamber {withdrawing room — the origin of our name of drawing-room for 
the salon) that ye had before, thereat ye shall lye to yourself; and when 
your gear is removed out of your little house, the door shall be locked, 
and your bags laid in one of the great coffers, so that they shall be safe, 
I trust." The hucches {hutches) or chests, and coffers, in the bed- 
chamber, are frequently mentioned in old writings. The large hutch 
seems to have been usually placed at the foot of the bed. In one of 
our preceding cuts (No. 268) we have seen it moved from its place to 
make a temporary seat before the fire. The above cut (No. 272), 
taken from a manuscript Latin Bible in the National Library in Paris 



2 D 



4 i 8 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

(No. 6829), shows us the hutch in its usual place, and opened so as to 
expose its contents to our view. It is here evidently filled with money, 
and the persons who have entered the chamber seem to be plundering 
it. In a very popular old story, the same in substance as that of King 
Lear and his daughters, an old man, on the marriage of his daughter, 
weakly gives up all his property to the young married pair, trusting to 
their filial love for his sustenance, and they go on treating him worse 
and worse, until he is saved from actual destitution by a deception he 
practises upon them. In one version of the story, given in English 
verse in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, the father goes to a 
friend and borrows a large sum of money in gold, which he places in 
his coffer, and, having invited them to his dwelling, and persuaded them 
to remain all night, he contrives that early in the morning they shall, as 
by accident, espy him counting his gold. The unfilial children, who 
supposed that he had given them all he possessed, were astonished to 
find him still rich, and were induced, by their covetousness, to treat 
him better during the rest of his life. The poem describes the old 
man leaving his bed to count the gold in his chest — 

But on the morow, at brode daylight, 
The fadir ros, and, for they shulden here 
What that he dide, in a boistous manere 
Unto his chest, which thre lokkes hadde, 
He went, and therat wrethed he ful sadde, 
And whan it was opened and unshit, 
The bagged gold bi the merchaunt hym lent 
He hath untied, and streight forth with it 
Unto his beddis feete gone is and went. 
What doth thanne this sel man and prudent 
But out the gold on a tapit hath shot, 
That in the bagges left ther no grot. 

—MS. Harl. 372, fol. $&, v°. 

Robbers, or plunderers in time of war, when breaking into a house, 
always made direct for the chamber. Among the letters of the Paston 
family, is a paper by a retainer of Sir John Fastolf, who had a house in 
Southwark, giving an account of his sufferings during the attack upon 
London by Jack Cade and the commons of Kent in 1450, in which he 
tells how " the captain (Cade) sent certain of his meny to my chamber 
in your rents, and there broke up my chest, and took away one obliga- 
tion of mine 'that was due unto me of ^36 by a priest of Paul's, and 



A ROBBERY. 



419 



one other obligation of one Knight of ^io, and my purse with five 
rings of gold, and 17s. 6d. of gold and silver ; and one harness (suite of 
armour) complete of the touch of Milan ; and one gown of fine perse 
blue, furred with martens ; and two gowns, one furred with bogey (budge), 
and one other lined with frieze." One of John Paston's correspondents, 
writing from London on the 28th of October 1455, gives the following 
still more pertinent account of the robbing of a man's house : — " Also 
there is great variance between the Earl of Devonshire and the Lord 
Bonvile, as hath been many day, and much debate is like to grow 
thereby; for on Thursday at night last past, the Earl of Devonshire's son 
and heir came, with sixty men of arms, to Radford's place in Devon- 
shire, which (Radford) was of counsel with, my Lord Bonvile; and they 
set a house on fire at Radford's gate, and cried and made a noise as 
though they had been sorry for the fire; and by thet cause Radford's men 
set open their gates and yede (went) out to see the fire ; and forthwith 
the earl's son aforesaid entered into the place, and entreated Radford 
to come down of his chamber to speak with them, promising him that 
he should no bodily harm have; upon which promise he came down, 
and spoke with the said earl's son. In the mean time his meny (retinue) 
rob his chamber, and rifled his hutches, and trussed such as they could 
get together, and carried it away on his own horses." As soon as this 
was done, Radford, who was an eminent lawyer residing at Po°"hill, 
near Kyrton, and now aged, was led 
forth and brutally murdered. In the 
stories and novels of the Middle Ages, 
the favoured lover who has been ad- 
mitted secretly into the chamber of 
his mistress is often concealed in the 
hutch or chest. 

Our cut No. 273, taken from the 
same manuscript of the Bible which 
furnished our last illustration, repre- 
sents the hutch also in its place at the 

foot of the bed. This sketch is inter- 
No. 273. — A Xady in Bed. . 

esting, both as showing more distinctly 

than the others the rings of the bed-curtains, and the rods attached 




420 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



to the celure, and as a particularly good illustration of the habit which 
still continued in all classes and ranks of society, of sleeping in bed 
entirely naked. The same practice is shown in several of our other 
cuts (see Nos. 267, 271, and 272), and indeed, in all the illuminated 
manuscripts of the fifteenth century which contain bedroom scenes. 
Wherever this is not the case, there is some evident reason for the 
contrary, as in our cut No. 268. During this period we have not so 
many pictorial illustrations of the toilet as might be expected. The 
ladies' combs were generally coarse and large in the teeth, but often very 
elaborately and beautifully ornamented. The mirror was, as at former 




No. 274. — A Dealer in Mercery. 

periods, merely a circular piece of metal or glass, set in a case, which 
was carved with figures or ornaments externally. The vocabularies 
mention the mirror as one of the usual objects with which a chamber 
should be furnished. 

Our cut No. 274 is taken from a manuscript (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, 
A. vii. fol. 93, v°) of the English translation of the singular work of the 
French writer, Guillaume de Deguilleville, entitled " Le Pelerinage de 
la Vie Humaine," a poem which bears a striking resemblance in its 
general character to the " Pilgrim's Progress " of Bunyan. The English 
version, which is in verse, and entitled simply the " Pilgrim/' has been 
ascribed to Lydgate. In the course of his adventures, the pilgrim comes 
to the Lady Agyographe, who is represented as dealing in " mercerye," 



MIRRORS. 421 



but the enumeration of articles embraced under that term is rather 

singular — «-, 

Quod sche, " Geve [if) I schal the telle, 
Mercerye I have to selle; 
In boystes [boxes) soote [siueet) oynementis, 
Therewith to don allegementis [to give relief) 
To ffolkes whiche be not glade, 
But discorded and mallade, 
And hurte with perturbacyouns 
Off many trybulacyouns. 
I have knyves, phylletys, callys, 
At ffeestes to hang upon wallys ; 
Kombes mo than nyne or ten, 
Bothe ffor horse and eke ffor men ; 
Merours also, large and brode, 
And ffor the syght wonder gode ; 
Off hem I have fful greet plente, 
For ffolke that haven volunte 
Byholde hemsilffe therynne." 

Our cut represents the interior of the house of the lady mercer, with the 
various articles enumerated in the text; the boxes of ointment, the horse- 
combs, the men's combs, and the mirrors. She first offers the pilgrim 
a mirror, made so as to natter people, by representing them hand- 
somer than they really were, which the pilgrim refuses — 

"Madame," quod I, "yow not displeese, 

This myroure schal do me noon eese ; 

Wherso that I leese or wynne, 

I wole nevere looke thereinne. " 

But ryght anoon myne happe it was 

To loken in another glasse, 

In the whiche withouten wene [zvithout doubt) 

I sawe mysylff ffoule and uncleene, 

And to byholde ryght hydous, 

Abhomynabel, and vecyous. 

That merour and that glas 

Schewyd [showed) to me what I was. 

In the celebrated " Romance of the Rose," one of the heroines, Bela- 
cueil, is introduced adorning her head with a fillet, and with this head- 
dress contemplating herself in a mirror — 

Belacueil souvent se remire, 
Dedans son miroer se mire, 
Savoir s'il est si bien seans. 

There is a representation of this scene in the beautiful illuminated manu- 



422 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



script of the " Romance of the Rose " in the British Museum (MS. Harl. 
No. 4425), in which, singularly enough, the mirror itself, which is 
evidently of glass, is represented as being convex, though perhaps we 
must attribute this appearance to the unskilfulness of the designer, who, 

in his attempt to show that the mirror 
was round, failed in perspective. In 
our first cut, from Guillaume de De- 
guilleville, it will be observed that the 
artist, in order to show that the articles 
intended to be represented are mirrors, 
and not plates, or any other round im- 
plements, has drawn the reflections of 
faces, although nobody is looking into 
them. Another peculiarity in the illu- 
mination of the " Romance of the Rose," a portion of which is repre- 
sented in our cut No. 275, is that the mirror is fixed against the wall,' 
instead of being held in the hand when used, as appears to have been 
more generally the case. Standing-mirrors seem not to have been 
yet employed ; but before the end of the fifteenth century, glass mirrors, 
which appear to have been invented in Belgium or Germany, came 
into use. 




No. 275. — Lady and Mirror. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

State of Society. — The Female Character. — Greediness in Eating. — 
Character of the Mediaeval Servants. — Daily Occupations in the 
Household ; Spinning and Weaving ; Fainting. — The Garden and 
its Uses. — Games out of Doors ; Hawking, &*c. — Travelling, and 
more frequent use of Carriages.— Taverns ; Frequented by Women. 
— Education and Literary Occupations ; Spectacles. 

DURING the fifteenth century, society in England was going 
through a transition which was less visible on the surface than 
it was great and effectual at the heart. France and England were both 
torn by revolutionary struggles, but with very different results ; for while 
in France the political power of the middle classes was destroyed, and 
the country was delivered to the despotism of the crown and of the 
great lords, in our country it was the feudal nobility which was ruined, 
while the municipal bodies had obtained an increased importance in 
the state, and the landed gentry gained more independence and power 
from the decline of that of the great feudal barons. Yet in both coun- 
tries feudalism itself, in its real character, was rapidly passing away — 
in France, before the power of the crown ; in England, before the re- 
modelling and reformation of society. While the substance of feudalism 
was thus perishing, its outward forms appeared to be more sought 
than ever, and the pride and ostentation of rank, and its arrogance too, 
prevailed during the fifteenth century to a greater degree than at any 
previous period. The court of Burgundy, itself only in origin a feudal 
principality, had set itself up as the model of feudalism, and there the 
old romances of chivalry were remodelled and published anew, and 
were read eagerly as the mirror of feudal doctrines. The court of Bur- 
gundy was remarkable for its wonderful pomp and magnificence, and 



424 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



for its ostentatious display of wealth ; it was considered the model of 
lordly courtesy and high breeding, and was the centre of literature and 
art ; and circumstances had brought the court of England into intimate 
connection with it, so that the influence of Burgundian fashions was 
greater during this period in England than that of the fashions of the 
court of France. There can be no doubt, too, that the social character 
in England and in France were now beginning to diverge widely from 
each other. The condition of the lower class in France was becoming 
more and more miserable, and the upper classes were becoming more 
licentious and immoral ; whereas, in England, though serfdom or villan- 
age still existed in name, and in law the peasantry had been largely 
enfranchised, its serfdom was gradually disappearing as a fact — their 
landlords, the country gentry, living among them in more kindly and 
more intimate intercourse, instead of treating them with tyrannical 
cruelty and dragging them off to be slaughtered in their private wars. 
Increased commerce had spread wealth among the middle classes, and 
had brought with it, no doubt, a considerable increase of social comfort. 
Social manners were still very coarse, but it is quite evident that the 
efforts of the religious reformers, the Lollards, were improving the moral 
tone of society in the middle and lower classes. 

People had, moreover, begun now to discuss great social questions. 
An example of this had been given in England in the celebrated poem 
of " Piers Ploughman," in the middle of the fourteenth century, and 
such questions were mooted very extensively by the Lollards, who held 
as a principle the natural equality of man. This was a doctrine which 
was accepted very slowly, and was certainly discountenanced by the 
Roman Catholic preachers, who encouraged the belief that the division 
of society into distinct classes was a permanent judgment of God, and 
even invented legends to account for its origin. Long after feudalism 
had ceased, it was difficult to disabuse people of the opinion that the 
blood which flowed in the veins of a gentleman was of a different kind 
from that of a peasant, or even from that of a burgher. One of the 
legendary explanations of these divisions of blood is given by a poetical 
writer of the reign of Henry VII., named Alexander Barclay, who has 
left us seven " Eclogues," as he calls them, on the social questions 
which agitated men's minds in his day. One day, according to this 



ORIGIN OF SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS. 425 

story, while Adam was absent occupied with his agricultural labours, 
Eve sat at home on their threshold with all her children about her, 
when suddenly she became aware of the approach of the Creator, and, 
ashamed of the great number of them, and fearful that her productiveness 
might be misinterpreted, she hurriedly concealed those which were the 
least well-favoured. " Some of them she placed under hay, some under 
straw and chaff, some in the chimney, and some in a tub of draff; but 
such as were fair and well-made she wisely and cunningly kept with 
her." God told her that he had come to see her children, that he 
might promote them in their different degrees ; upon which she pre- 
sented them in their order of birth. God then ordained the eldest to 
be an emperor, the second to be a king, and the third a duke to guide 
an army ; of the rest he made earls, lords, barons, squires, knights, and 
"hardy champions." Some he appointed to be "judges, mayors, and 
governors, merchants, sheriffs, and protectors, aldermen, and burgesses." 
While all this was going on, Eve began to think of her other children, 
and, unwilling that they should lose their share of honours, she now 
produced them from their hiding-places. They appeared with their 
hair rough, and powdered with chaff, some full of straws, and some 
covered with cobwebs and dust, " that anybody might be frightened 
at the sight of them." They were black with dirt, ill-favoured in coun- 
tenance, and misshapen in stature, and God did not conceal his disgust. 
" None," he said, " can make a vessel of silver out of an earthen 
pitcher, or goodly silk out of a goat's fleece, or a bright sword of a 
cow's tail ; neither will I, though I can, make a noble gentleman out 
of a vile villain. You shall all be ploughmen and tillers of the ground, 
to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve, and hedge and dike, and in 
this wise shall ye live in endless servitude. Even the townsmen shall 
laugh you to scorn ; yet some of you shall be allowed to dwell in cities, 
and shall be admitted to .such occupations as those of makers of pud- 
dings, butchers, cobblers, tinkers, costard-mongers, hostlers, or daubers." 
Such, the teller of the story informs us, was the beginning of servile 
labour. 

A song of the fifteenth century, printed in the collections of songs 
and carols edited for the Percy Society, the burthen of which is the 
necessity of money in all conditions, describes the different ranks and 



426 THE HOMES OF OTHER DA VS. 



their various aspirations in the following order : the yeoman who desires 
to become a gentleman, the gentleman who seeks to be a squire, the 
squire who would be a knight, the lettered man who seeks distinction 
in the schools, the merchant who aspired to rise to wealth, and the 
lawyer who sought promotion at the bar. In the interesting " Recueil 
de Poe'sies Francoises des xv e et xvi e Siecles," by M. de Montaiglon 
(vol. iii. pp. 138, 147), there are two poems, probably of the latter part 
of the fifteenth century, entitled "Les Souhaitz des Homines" (the wishes 
of the men) and " Les Souhaitz des Femmes" (the wishes of the women), 
in which the various classes are made to declare that which they desire 
most. Thus dukes, counts, and knights desire to be skilful in warlike 
accomplishments ; the president in parliament desires the gold chain 
and the seat of honour, with wisdom in giving judgment ; the advocate 
wishes for eloquence in court, and for a fair bourgeoise or damoiselle at 
home to make his house joyful ; the burgher wishes for a good fire in 
winter, and a good supply of fat capons ; and the clergy are made to wish 
for good cheer and handsome women. The wishes of the women are on 
the whole, perhaps, more characteristic than those of the men. Thus, 
the queen wishes to be able to love God and the king, and to live in peace; 
the duchess, to have all the enjoyments and pleasures of wealth; the 
countess, to have a husband who was loyal and brave ; the knight's lady, 
to hunt the stag in the green woods ; the damoiselle, or lady of gentle 
blood, also loved hunting, and wished for a husband valiant in war ; 
and the chamber-maiden took pleasure in walking in the fair fields by 
the river-side; while the bourgeoise loved, above all things, a soft 
bed at night, with a good pillow, and clean white sheets. That part 
of society which now comes chiefly under our notice had fallen into 
two classes, that which boasted gentle blood, and the ungentle, or 
burgher class, and this was particularly shown among the ladies, for the 
bourgeoise sought continually to imitate the gentlewoman, or damoiselle, 
who, on her part, looked on these encroachments of the other with 
great jealousy. M. de Montaiglon has printed in the collection just 
quoted (vol. v. p. 5) a short poem entitled, " The Debate between the 
Damoiselle and the Bourgeoise," in which the exclusive rights of gentle 
blood are strongly claimed and disputed. We have seen the same 
ambition of the wives of burghers and yeomen to ape the gentlewoman 



COUNSELS TO YOUNG LADIES. 427 

as far back as the days of Chaucer, and it now often becomes the subject 
of popular satire. Yet we must not forget that this desire to imitate 
higher society assisted much in refining the manners of the middle 
classes. M. de Montaiglon (vol. ii. p. 18) has printed a short piece in 
verse of the latter part of the fifteenth century, entitled " The Doctrinal 
des Filles," containing the sentiments which teachers sought to implant 
in the minds of young ladies, and it will suit England at that time 
equally with France. The young ladies are here recommended to be 
bashful ; not to be forward in falling in love ; to pay proper attention 
to their dress, and to courteousness in behaviour ; and not to be too 
eager in dancing. From all that we gather from the writers of the time, 
the love of dancing appears at this period to have been carried to a 
very great degree of extravagance, and to have often led to great dis- 
soluteness in social manners, and the more zealous moralists preached 
against the dance with much earnestness. The author of our "Doc- 
trinal " admonishes the young unmarried girl to dance with moderation 
when she is at the " carol " (the name of the ordinary dance), lest people 
who see her dancing too eagerly should take her for a dissolute woman — 

Fille, quant serez en karolle, 
Dansez gentiment par mesure, 
Car, quant fille se desmesure, 
Tel la voit qui la tient pour folle. 

The young lady is next cautioned against talking scandal, against 

believing in dreams, against drinking too much wine, and against being 

too talkative at table. She was to avoid idleness, to respect the aged, 

not to allow herself to be kissed in secret (kissing in public was the 

ordinary form of salutation), and not to be quarrelsome. She was 

especially to avoid being alone with a priest, except at confession, for 

it was dangerous to let priests haunt the house where there were young 

females — 

Fille, hormis confession, 
Seulette ne parlez a prebstre ; 
Laissez-les en leur eglise estre, 
Sans ce qu'ilz hantent vos maisons. 

These lines, written and published in a bigoted Roman Catholic country, 
by a man who was evidently a staunch Romanist, and addressed to 
young women as their rule of behaviour, present perhaps one of the 



428 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

strongest evidences we could have of the evil influence exercised by the 

Romish clergy on social morals — a fact, however, of which there are 

innumerable other proofs. 

Whatever may have been the effect of such teaching on the better 

educated classes, the general character of the women of the middle and 

lower classes appears to have been of a description little likely to be 

conducive to domestic happiness. All the popular materials, for social 

history represent their morals as being very low, and their tempers as 

overbearing and quarrelsome; the consequence of which was a separation 

of domestic life among the two sexes after marriage — the husbands, when 

not engaged at their work or business, seeking their amusement away 

from the house, and the wives assembling with their "gossips," often at 

the public taverns, to drink and amuse themselves. In the old Mysteries 

and Morality plays, in which there was a good deal of quiet satire on 

the manners of the age in which they were composed and acted, Noah's 

wife appears often as the type of the married woman in the burgher class, 

and her temper seems to have become almost proverbial. In the 

" Towneley Mysteries," when Noah acquaints his wife with the approach 

of the threatened deluge, and of his orders to build the ark, she abuses 

him so grossly as a common carrier of ill news that he is provoked to 

strike her ; she returns the blow, and they have a regular battle, in which 

the husband has the advantage, but he is glad to escape from her tongue 

and proceed to his work. In the " Chester Mysteries," Noah's wife will 

not go into the ark ; and when all is ready, the flood beginning, and the 

necessity of taking her in apparent, she refuses to enter unless she is 

allowed to take her gossips with her — 

Yea, sir, sette up youer saile, 

And rowe fourth with evill haile, 

For withouten fayle 

I will not oute of this towne, 

But I have my gossippes everyechone (every one) 

One foote further I will not gone (go). 

They shall not drowne, by Sante John, 

And I maye save ther life ! 

They loven me full wel, by Christe ! 

But thout lett them into they cheiste, 

Elles (othei'wise) rowe nowe wher the leiste (where you like), 

And gette thee a newe wiffe. 

It is to be supposed that Noah, when he wanted her, had found her with 



A SUBSTANTIAL BREAKFAST 429 

her gossips in the tavern. At last Noah's three sons are obliged to drag 
their mother into the " boat," when a scene occurs which appears thus 
briefly indicated in the text — 

Noye. 
Welckome, wiffe, into this botte ! 

Noye's Wiffe. 
Have thou that for thy note ! [She beats him.] 

Noye. 
Ha, ha ! marye, this is hotte ! 
It is good for to be still. 

The conversation of these " gossips," when they met, was loose and 
coarse in the extreme, and, as described in contemporary writings, the 
practice even of profane swearing prevailed generally among both sexes 
to a degree which, to our ears, would sound perfectly frightful — it was 
one of the vices against which the moralists preached most bitterly. Life, 
indeed, in spite of its occasional refinement in the higher ranks of society, 
was essentially coarse at this period, and we can hardly conceive much 
delicacy of people who dieted as, for instance, the family of the Earl of 
Northumberland are reported to have done in the household book, com- 
piled in 15 1 2, which was published by Bishop Percy. I only give the 
breakfast allowances, which, on flesh-days, were " for my lord and my 
lady," a loaf of bread "in trenchers," two manchets (loaves of fine meal), 
one quart of beer (or, as we should now call it, ale), a quart of wine, half 
a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled ; for " my lord Percy and Mr 
Thomas Percy" (the two elder children), half a loaf of household bread, 
a manchet, one pottle of beer (two quarts — they were not yet allowed 
wine), a chicken, or else three mutton bones boiled ; " breakfasts for 
the nurcery, for my lady Margaret and Mr Ingram Percy " (who in fact 
were mere children), a manchet, one quart of beer, and three mutton 
bones boiled ; for my lady's gentlewomen, a loaf of household bread, a 
pottle of beer, and three mutton bones boiled, or else a piece of beef 
boiled. It will be seen here that the family dined two to a plate, or 
mess, as was the usual custom in the Middle Ages. On fish-days, the 
breakfast allowances were as follows : for my lord and my lady, a loaf 
of bread in trenchers, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, 
two pieces of salt fish, six baked herrings, or a dish of sprats ; for the 



43o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

two elder sons, half a loaf of household bread, a manchet, a pottle of 
beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, or three white 
(fresh) herrings • for the two children in the nursery, a manchet, a quart 
of beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt-fish, a dish of sprats, or three 
white herrings ; and for my lady's gentlewomen, a loaf of bread, a pottle 
of beer, a piece of salt fish, or three white herrings. We shall be inclined, 
in comparing it with our modern style of living, to consider this as a 
very substantial meal to begin the day with. 

According to the old moral and satirical writers, excessive greediness 
in eating had become one of the prevailing vices of this age. Barclay, 
in his " Eclogues," gives a strange picture of the bad regulations of the 
tables at the courts of great people in the time of Henry VII. He 
describes the tables as served in great confusion, and even as covered 
with dirty table-cloths. The food he represents as being bad in itself, 
and often ill-cooked. Everybody, he says, was obliged to eat in a hurry, 
unless he would lose his chance of eating at all, and they served the 
worst dishes first, so that when you had satiated yourself with food which 
was hardly palatable, the dainties made their appearance. This led 
people to eat more than they wanted. When an attractive dish did 
make its appearance, it led literally to a scramble among the guests — 

But if it fortune, as seldome doth befall, 
That at beginning come dishes best of all, 
Or (before) thou hast tasted a morsell or twayne, 
Thy dish out of sight is taken soon agayne. 
Slowe be the servers in serving in alway, 
But swifte be they after taking thy meate away. 
A speciall custome is used them among, 
No good dish to suffer on borde to be longe. 
If the dish be pleasaunt, eyther fleshe or fishe, 
Ten handes at once swarme in the dishe ; 
And if it be fleshe, ten knives shalt thou see 
Mangling the flesh and in the platter flee ; 
To put there thy handes is perill without fayle, 
Without a gauntlet or els a glove of mayle. 

It would thus seem that the servers left the guests, except those at 
the high table, to help themselves. It appears that in the earlier part 
of the sixteenth century, the English had gained the character of keep- 
ing the most profuse tables, and being the greatest eaters, in Europe. 
A scrap preserved in a manuscript of the reign of Henry VIII., and 



GREEDINESS AT TABLE. 431 



printed in the " Reliquiae Antiquae" (vol. i. p. 326), offers rather a 
curious excuse for this character. There was a merchant of England, 
we are told, who adventured into far countries, and when he had been 
there a month or more, a great lord invited this English merchant to 
dinner. And when they were at dinner, the lord wondered that he ate 
not more of his meat, for, said he, " Englishmen are called the greatest 
feeders in the world, and it is reported that one man will eat as much 
as six of another nation, and more victuals are consumed there than 
in any other region." " It is true," the merchant replied, " it is so, and 
for three reasonable causes so much victual is served on the table ; one 
of which is, for love, another for physic, and the third, for dread. Sir, 
as concerns the first, we are accustomed to have many divers meats 
for our friends and kinsfolk, because some love one manner of meat, 
and some another, and we wish every man to be satisfied. Secondly, 
in regard of physic, because for divers maladies which people have, some 
men will eat one meat, and some another, it is desirable that everybody 
should be suited. The third cause is for dread ; for we have so great 
abundance and plenty in our realm, of beasts and fowls, that if we 
should not kill and destroy them, they would destroy and devour us." It 
may be remarked that, during this period, the English merchants and 
burghers in general seem to have kept very good tables, and that the lower 
orders, and even the peasantry, appear to have been by no means ill fed. 
The confusion in serving at table described by Alexander Barclay was 
no doubt caused in a great measure by the numerous troops of riotous 
and unruly serving-men and followers, who were kept by the noblemen 
and greater landholders, and who formed everywhere one of the curses 
of society. Within the household, they had become so unmanageable 
that their masters made vain attempts to regulate them ; while abroad 
they were continually engaged in quarrels, often sanguinary ones, with 
countrymen or townsmen, or with the retainers of other noblemen or 
gentlemen, in which their masters considered that it concerned their 
credit to support and protect them, so that the quarrels of the servants 
became sometimes feuds between their lords. The old writers, of all 
descriptions, bear witness to the bad conduct of serving-men and servants 
in general, and to their riotousness, and especially of the garfous, or, 
as they were called in English, " lads." Cain's gartio, in the " Towneley 



432 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Mysteries," was intended as a picture of this class, in all their coarseness 
and vulgarity ; and the character of Jack Garcio, in the play of " The 
Shepherds," in the same collection, is another type of them. 

We have seen that the breakfast in the household of the Percys was 
a very substantial meal, but it seems not to have been generally con- 
sidered a regular meal, either as to what was eaten at it, or as to the 
hour at which it was taken. Perhaps this was left to the convenience, 
or caprice, of individuals.* We have a curious description of the 
division of the occupations of the day in a princely household, in an 
account which has been left us of the household regulations of the 
Duchess of York, mother of King Edward IV., which, however, were 
strongly influenced by the pious character of that princess, who spent 
much time in religious duties and observances. Her usual hour of 
rising was seven o'clock, when she heard matins ; she then " made her- 
self ready," or dressed herself, for the occupations of the day, and when 
this was done, she had a low mass in her chamber. After this mass she 
took something a to recreate nature," which was, in fact, her breakfast, 
though it is afterwards stated that it was not a regular meal. She then 
went to chapel, and remained at religious service until dinner, which, 
as we are further told, took place, " upon eating days," at eleven o'clock, 
with a first dinner in the time of high mass for the various officers 
whose duty it was to attend at table ; but, on fasting days, the dinner 
hour was twelve o'clock, with a later dinner for carvers and waiters. 
After dinner, the princess devoted an hour to give audience to all who 
had any business with her; she then slept for a quarter of an hour, 
and then spent her time in prayer until the first peal of even-song 
(vespers), when " she drank wine or ale at her pleasure." She went to 
chapel, and returned thence to supper, which, on eating days, was 
served at five o'clock, the carvers and servers at table having supped at 
four. The ordinary diet in the house of this princess appears to have 
been extremely simple. On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, the 
household was served at dinner with beef and mutton, and one roast ; 

* At a rather later period, Sir Thomas Elyot, in his " Castell of Helth" (printed 
in 1 541), recommends that breakfast should be taken about four hours before dinner, 
considering it therefore as a light meal, and he advises, in a sanitary view, that not 
less than six hours should be allowed to elapse between dinner and supper. 



DOMESTIC OCCUPATIONS. 



433 



at supper with " leyched " beef and roast mutton ; on Monday and 
Wednesday, they had boiled beef and mutton at dinner, and at supper, 
the same as on the three other days ; on Friday, salt fish and two dishes 
of fresh fish ; and on Saturday, salt fish, one fresh fish, and butter, for 
dinner, and salt fish and eggs for supper. After supper, the princess 
" disposed herself to be familiar with her gentlewomen," with " honest 
mirth ; " and one hour before going to bed she took a cup of wine, went 
to her privy closet to pray, and was in bed by eight o'clock. 

The Duchess of York is of course to be looked upon as a model of 
piety^and sobriety, and her hours are not perhaps to be taken as exactly 
those of other people, and certainly not her occupations. In the 
French " Debat de la Damoiselle et de la Bourgeoise," the latter 
accuses the gentlewoman of late rising. " Before you are awake," she 
says, " I am dressed and have attended to my duties ; do not therefore 
be surprised if we are more diligent than you, since you sleep till 
dinner-time." " No," replies the damoiselle, " we must spend our 
evening in dancing, and cannot do as you, who go to bed at the 
same time as your hens." 

It has been stated already, that, even in the highest ranks of society, the 
ladies were usually employed at home on useful, and often on profitable 
work. This work embraced the various processes in the manufacture 
of linen and cloth, as well as the making them up into articles of dress, and 
embroidery, and knitting, and other similar occupations. The spinning- 
wheel was a necessary implement in every 
household, from the palace to the cottage. In 
1437, John Notyngham, a rich grocer of Bury 
St Edmunds, bequeathed to one of his 
legatees, "j spynnyng whel et j par carp- 
sarum," meaning probably " a pair of cards/' 
an implement which is stated in the " Promp- 
torium Parvulorum" to be especially a 
"wommanys instrument." A few years pre- 
viously, in 141 8, Agnes Stubbard, a resident 
in the same town, bequeathed to two of her 
maids, each one pair of wool-combs, one " kembyng-stok " (a comb- 
ing-stock, or machine for holding the wool to be combed), one wheel, 




2 E 



434 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



and one pair of cards ; and to another woman a pair of wool-combs, a 
wheel, and a pair of cards. John Baret, of Bury, in 1463, evidently a rich 
man with a very large house and household, speaks in his will of a part 
of the house, or probably a room, which was distinguished as the " spin- 
ning-house." Our cut No. 276J from an illuminated Bible of the fifteenth 
century in the Imperial Library at Paris (No. 6829), represents a woman 
of apparently an ordinary class of society at work with her distaff under 
her arm. The next cut (No. 277) is taken from a fine illuminated manu- 
script of the well-known French " Boccace des Nobles Femmes," and 
illustrates the story of" Cyrille," the wife of King Tarquin. We have 




No. 277. — A Queen and her Damsels at Work. 

here a queen and her maidens employed in the same kind of domestic 
labours. The lady on the left is occupied with her combs or cards, and 
her combing-stock ; the other sits at her distaff, also supported by a stock, 
instead of holding it under her arm ; and the queen, with her hand on 
the shuttle, is performing the final operation of weaving. 

Some of the more elegant female accomplishments, which were 
unknown in the earlier ages, were now coming into vogue. Dancing 
was, as already stated, a more favourite amusement than ever, and it 
received a new eclat from the frequent introduction of new dances, of 
which some of the old popular writers give us long lists. Some of these, 



FEMALE DEVOTION TO THE FINE ARTS. 



435 



too, were of a far more active and exciting description than formerly. 

One of the personages in the early interlude of " The Four Elements," 

talks of persons — 

That shall both daunce and spryng, 
And torne clene above the grounde, 
With fryscas and with gambawdes round, 
That all the hall shall ryng. 

Music, also, was more extensively cultivated as a domestic acomplish- 
ment; and it was a more common thing to meet with ladies who 
indulged in literary pursuits. Sometimes, too, the ladies of the fifteenth 
centurj- practised drawing and painting, — arts which, instead of being, 
as formerly, restricted almost to the clergy, had now passed into the 
hands of the laity, and were undergoing rapid improvement. The illu- 




No. 278.— A Lady Artist. 

minated manuscript of " Boccace des Nobles Femmes," which furnished 
the subject of cut No. 277, contains several pictures of ladies occupied 
in painting, one of which (illustrating the chapter on "Marcie Vierge") 
is represented in our cut No. 278. The lady has her palette, her colour- 
box, and her stone for grinding the colours, much as an artist of the 
present day would have, though she is seated before a somewhat singu- 
larly formed framework. She is evidently painting her own portrait, for 
which purpose she uses the mirror which hangs over the colour-box. 
It is rather curious that the tools which lie by the side of the grinding- 
stone are those of a sculptor, and not those of a painter, so that it was 
no doubt intended that we should suppose that she combined the two 



436 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



branches of the art. In one of the illuminations of the manuscript of 
the " Romance of the Rose," which has been quoted before, preserved 
in the British Museum, we have a picture of a male painter, copied in 
our cut No. 279, and intended to represent Apelles, who is working 
with a palette and easel, exactly as artists do at the present day : both 
he and our lady artist in the cut are evidently painting on board. We 
begin now also to trace the existence of a great number of domestic 




No. 279. — A Painter at his Easel. 

sports and pastimes, some of which still remain in usage, but which we 
have not here room to enumerate. 

Out of doors, the garden continued to be the favourite resort of the 
ladies. It would be easy to pick out numerous descriptions of gardens 
from the writers of the fifteenth century. Lydgate thus describes the 
garden of the rich " churl " — 

Whilom ther was in a smal village, 

As myn autor makethe rehersayle, 

A chorle, whiche hadde lust and a grete corage 

Within hymself, be diligent travayle, 

To array his gardeyn with notable apparayle, 

Of lengthe and brede yelicke [equally) square and longe, 

Hegged and dyked to make it sure and stronge. 

Alle the aleis were made playne with sond (sand), 
The benches (banks) turned with newe turvis grene, 



GARDENS AND THEIR DECORATION. 437 

Sote herbers {srveet beds of plants), with condite {fountain) at the honde, 

That wellid up agayne the sonne schene, 

Lyke silver stremes as any cristalle clene, 

The burbly wawes {bubbling waves) in up-boyling, 

Rounde as byralle ther bcamys out shynynge. 

Amyddis the gardeyn stode a fressh lawrer {laurel), 
Theron a bird syngyng bothe day and nyghte. 

And at a somewhat later period, Stephen Hawes, in his singular poem 
entitled "The Pastime of Pleasure," describes a larger and more magni- 
ficent garden. Amour arrives at the gate of the garden of La Bel Pucel, 
and requests the portress to conduct him to her mistress — ■ 

" Truly," quod she, "in the garden grene 
Of many a swete and sundry flowre 
She maketh a garlonde that is veray shene, 
Wythe trueloves wrought in many a coloure, 
Replete with sweteness and dulcet odoure ; 
And all alone, wythout company, 
Amyddes an herber she sitteth plesantly." 

From the description of this " gloryous " garden that follows, we 
might imagine that the practice of cutting or training trees and flowers 
into fantastic shapes, as was done with box-trees in the last century, had 
prevailed among the gardeners of the fifteenth. The garden of La Bel 
Pucel is described as being — 

Wyth Flora paynted and wrought curyously, 
In divers knottes of marvaylous gretenes ; 
Rampande lyons stode up wondersly, 
Made all of herbes with dulcet swetenes, 
Wyth many dragons of marvaylos likenes, 
Of dyvers floures made ful craftely, 
By Flora couloured wyth colours sundry. 

Amiddes the garden so moche delectable 

There was an herber fayre and quadrante, 

To paradyse right well comparable, 

Set all about with floures fragraunt ; 

And in the myddle there was resplendyshaunte 

A dulcet spring and marvaylous fountaine, 

Of golde and asure made all certaine. 

Eesyde whiche fountayne, moost fayre lady 

La Bel Pucel was gayly syttyng ; 

Of many floures fayre and ryally 

A goodly chaplet she was in makynge. 



438 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



I have had occasion before to observe that garlands and chaplets of 
flowers were in great request in the Middle Ages, and the making of 
them was a favourite occupation. Our cut No. 280, taken from the 
illuminated calendar prefixed to the splendid manuscript " Heures " of 
Anne of Brittany in the National Library in Paris, where it illustrates 
the month of May, represents the interior of a garden, with a lady thus 
employed with her maidens. This garden appears to be a square piece 
of ground, surrounded by a high wall, with a central compartment or 
lawn enclosed by a fence of trellis-work and a hedge of rose-trees. 
Pictures of gardens will also be found in the MS. of the 
" Romance of the Rose," already referred to, and in other illumi- 



y == y=M^f^j ;r y=i = p^ 





No. 280. — A Lady and her Maidens weaving Garlands. 

nated books, but the illuminators were unable to represent the 
elaborate descriptions of the poets. Besides flowers, every garden con- 
tained herbs for medicinal and other purposes, such as love-philtres, 
which were in great repute in the Middle Ages. In the romance of 
" Gerard de Nevers " (or La Violette), an old woman goes into the 
garden attached to the castle where she lives, to gather herbs for mak- 
ing a deadly poison. This incident is represented in our cut No. 281, 
taken from a magnificent illuminated manuscript of the prose version of 
this romance in the National Library in Paris. The garden is here 
again surrounded by a wall, with a postern gate leading to the country, 
and we have the same trellis-fencings as before. It appears to have 



OUT-DOOR GAMES. 



439 



been the usual custom thus to enclose and protect the beds in a garden 
with a trellis-fence. 

The various games and exercises practised by people out of doors 
seem to have differed little at this time from those belonging to former 
periods, except that from time to time we meet with allusions to 
kinds of amusement which have not before been mentioned, although 
they were probably well known. Among the drawings of the borders 
of illuminated manuscripts, from the thirteenth century to the beginning 
of the sixteenth, we meet with groups of children and of adults, which 




No. 281. — A Lady gathering Herbs. 



represent, doubtless, games of which both the names and the explana- 
tions are lost ; and sometimes we are surprised to find thus represented 
games which otherwise we should have supposed to be of modern 
invention. One very curious instance may be stated. In the rather 
celebrated manuscript of the French romance of " Alexander " in the 
Bodleian Library at Oxford, which was written and illuminated in the 
fourteenth century, we have representations of a puppet-show, which 



44° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



appears to be identical with our modern Punch and Judy. We copy- 
one of these curious early drawings in our cut No. 282. 

Among the pastimes most popular at this time with the lower and 
middle classes were archery, the practice of which was enforced by 
authority, and shooting with the cross-bow, as well as most of the ordi- 
nary rough games known at a later period, such as football and the like. 
The English archers were celebrated throughout Europe. The poet 




No. 282. — A Puppet-Show. 

Barclay, who wrote at the close of the century, makes the shepherd in 
one of his eclogues not only boast of his skill in archery, but he adds — 

I can dance the ray ; I can both pipe and sing, 
If I were mery ; I can both hurle and sling ; 
I runne, I wrestle, I can welle throwe the barre, 
No shepherd throweth the axeltree so farre ; 
If I were mery, I could well leape and spring ; 
I were a man mete to serve a prince or king. 

Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and such like sports, were also pursued with 
avidity; and even gentlemen and young noblemen took part in them. 
Any game, in fact, which produced violent exercise and violent excite- 
ment was in favour with all ranks. Among the higher classes, hunting 
and hawking were pursued with more eagerness than ever, and they be- 
come now the subject of numerous written treatises, setting forth their laws 
and regulations. When gentlemen were riding out for pleasure, they 
were usually accompanied with hawks and hounds. In the next cut 
(No 283), taken from an illuminated manuscript of the French Boccaccio 
at Paris (National Library, MS. No. 6887), a party thus attended meets 
another party on horseback, and they are in the act of saluting each 



CARRIAGES. 



441 



other. Horses were still almost the only conveyance from place to 
place, though we now more often meet with pictures of carriages ; but, 
though evidently intended to be very gorgeous, they are of clumsy con- 




No. 283. — A Party Hawking. 

struction, and seem only to have been used by princes or great nobles. 
I give two examples from a superbly illuminated manuscript of the 
French translation of " Valerius Maximus," in the great National Library 




No. 284. — A Royal Carriage and Escort. 



in Paris (No. 6984), executed in the latter part of the fifteenth century. 
The first (cut No. 284) is a royal car, in which a throne has been placed 
for the king, who sits in it in state. His guards lead the horses. The 
form of the carriage is very simple ; it is a mere cart on wheels, without 



442 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



any springs, and has a covering supported on two large hoops, which are 
strengthened by cross-bars resembling the spokes of a wheel. In the 
second example (cut No. 285), the carriage bears some resemblance to a 
modern omnibus. It is intended to represent the incident in Roman his- 
tory, where the unfilial Tullia caused her charioteer to drive over the body 
of her father, Servius Tullus, who had been slain by her husband Tarquin 
the Proud. The ladies appear to sit on benches inside the carriage, while 
the driver is mounted on the horse nearest to it. These carriages still 
retained the name of carts, although they appear to have been used chiefly 
on state occasions. Riding in them must have been very uneasy, and 
they were exposed to accidents. When Richard II. made his grand 
entry into London, a ceremony described by Richard de Maidstone in 




No. 285. — Tullia Riding over her Father's Body. 



Latin verse, the ladies of the court rode in two cars, or carts, one of 
which fell over, and exposed its fair occupants in a not very decorous 
manner to the jeers of the multitude. 

As yet carriages seem not to have been used in travelling, which was 
performed on horseback or on foot. During the century of which we 
are speaking, especially after the accession of Henry VI. to the English 
throne, the roads were extremely insecure, the country being infested by 
such numerous bands of robbers that it was necessary to travel in con- 
siderable companies, and well armed. From this circumstance, and 
from the political condition of the age, the retinue of the nobility and 
gentry presented a very formidable appearance ; and such as could only 
afford to travel with one or two servants generally attached themselves 



TAVERNS AND THEIR FREQUENTERS. 



443 



to some powerful neighbour, and contrived to make their occasions of 
locomotion coincide with his. We find several allusions to the dangers 
of travelling in the Paston Letters. In a letter dated in 1455 or 1460 
(it is uncertain which), Margaret Paston desires her husband, then in 
London, to pay a debt for one of their friends, because on account of 
the robbers who beset the road, money could not be sent safely from 
Norfolk to the capital. A year or two 
earlier, we hear of a knight of Suffolk 
riding with a hundred horsemen, armed 
defensively and offensively, besides the 
accompaniment of friends. As tra- 
velling, however, became frequent, it 
led to the multiplication of places of 
entertainment on the roads, and large 
hostelries and inns were now scattered 
pretty thickly over the country, not 
only in all the smaller towns, but often 




No. 286.— A Publican. 

in villages, and sometimes even in comparatively lonely places. In' the 
manuscript of the French Boccaccio in the Imperial Library (No. 6887), 
there is a picture (copied in our cut No. 286) representing a publican 
serving his liquor on a bench outside his door. 

The tavern was the general lounge of the idle, and even of the indus- 
trious during their hours of relaxation ; and in the towns a good part of 
the male population who had not domestic establishments of their own 
appear to have lived at the taverns and eating-houses, the allurements 
of which drew them into every sort of dissipation, which ended in the 
ruin of men's fortunes and health. The poet Occleve, in his reminis- 
cences of his own conduct, describes the life of the riotous young men 
of his time. The sign which hung at the tavern door, he says, was 
always a temptation to him, which he could seldom resist. The tavern 
was the resort of women of light character, and was the scene of brawls 
and outrages ; by the former of which he was frequently seduced into 
extravagant expenditure, but his want of courage, he confesses, kept him 
out of the latter. Westminster gate was then celebrated for its taverns 
and cooks' shops, at which the poet Occleve's lavishness made him a 
welcome guest — ■ 



444 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Wher was a gretter maister eek than y, 

Or bet acqweyntid at Westmynster yate, 

Among the taverneres namely (especially) 

And cookes ? Whan I cam, eerly or late, 

I pynchid nat at hem in myne acate (purchase of provisions), 

But paied hem al that they axe wolde ; 

Wherfore I was the welcomer algate {always), 

And for a verray (true) gentilman yholde. 

Here he spent his nights in such a manner that he went to bed later 
than any of his companions, except perhaps two, whose time of going 
to bed he says that he did not know, it was so late, but he asserts that 
they loved their beds so well that they never left them till near prime, 
or six o'clock in the morning, which thus appears, at the beginning of 
the fifteenth century, to have been considered an excessively late hour 
for rising. 

The tavern was also the resort of women of the middle and lower 
orders, who assembled there to drink, and to gossip. It has been 
already stated that, in the mysteries, or religious plays, Noah was repre- 
sented as finding his wife drinking with her gossips at the tavern when 
he Wanted to take her into the ark. The meetings of gossips in taverns 
form the subjects of many of the popular songs of the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries, both in England and France. It appears that these 
meetings of gossips in taverns were the first examples of what we now call 
a pic-nic, for each woman took with her some provisions, and with these 
the whole party made a feast in common. A song of perhaps the middle 
of the fifteenth century, printed in my collection of "Songs and Carols," 
edited for the Percy Society, gives us rather a picturesque description of 
one of these gossip-meetings. The women, having met accidentally, the 
question is put where the best wine was to be had, and one of them 
replies that she knows where could be procured the best drink in the 
town, but that she did not wish her husband to be acquainted with it — 

I know a drawght of mery-go-downe, 
The best it is in all thys towne ; 
But yet wold I not, for my gowne, 
My husbond it wyst, ye may me trust. 

The place of meeting having thus been fixed, they are represented as 
proceeding thither two and two, not to attract observation, lest their 
husbands might hear of their meeting. "God might send me a stripe or 



GOSSIPING HABITS OF THE WOMEN. 445 

two," said one, "if my husband should see me here." "Nay," said 
Alice, another, " she that is afraid had better go home ; I dread no 
man." Each was to carry with her some goose, or pork, or the wing of 
a capon, or a pigeon pie, or some similar article — 

And ich (each) off them wyll sumwhat bryng, 

Gosse, pygge, or capons wyng, 

Pastes off pigeons, or sum other thyng. 

Accordingly, on arriving at the tavern, they call for wine " of the best," 

and then — 

Ech of them brought forth ther dysch ; 
Sum brought flesh, and sume fysh. 

Their conversation runs first on the goodness of the wines, and next on 
the behaviour of their husbands, with whom they are all dissatisfied. 
In one copy of the song, a harper makes his appearance, whom they 
hire, and dance to his music. When they pay their reckoning, they 
find, in one copy of the song, that it amounts to threepence each, and 
rejoice that it is so little, while in another they find that each has to pay 
sixpence, and are alarmed at the greatness of the amount. They agree 
to separate, and go home by different streets, and they are represented 
as telling their husbands that they had been to church. This is no 
doubt a picture of a common scene in the fifteenth century. Among 
the municipal records of Canterbury, there is preserved the deposition 
of a man who appears to have been suspected of a robbery, and who, 
to prove an alibi, describes all his actions during three days. On one 
of these, Monday, he went after eight o'clock in the evening to a tavern, 
and there he found "wyfes" drinking, "that is to say, Goddarde's wyfe, 
Cornewelle's wyfe, and another woman," and he had a halfpennyworth 
of beer with them. This was apparently at the beginning of the reign 
of Henry VIII. 

It has been intimated before, that literature and reading had now 
become more general accomplishments than formerly. We can trace 
among the records of social history a general spreading of education, 
which showed an increasing intellectual agitation ; in fact, education, 
without becoming more perfect, had become more general. I have 
already given figures of the implements of writing at an earlier period. 
In one of the compartments of the tapestry of " Nancy " (of the latter 



446 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



part of this century), engravings of which have been published by M. 

Achille Jubinal, we have a figure of a scribe (cut No. 287) with all 

his apparatus of writing, — the pen, the 
penknife, and the portable pen-case with 
ink-stand attached. But the most curious 
article which this scribe has in use is a 
pair of spectacles. Spectacles, however, we 
know had been in existence long before 
this period. A century earlier, Chaucer's 
^mmuL "Wife of Bath" observed rather senten- 
tiously — 




No 287. — A Scribe, in Spectacles, 
from the Tapestry of Nancy. 



Povert ful often, whan a man is lowe, 
Maketh him his God and eek himself to knowe. 
Povert a spectacle is, asthinketh me, 
Thurgh which he may his verray frendes se. 



Lydgate, addressing an old man who was on the point of marrying a 

young wife, tells him to 

Loke sone after a potent {staff) and spectacle ; 
Be not ashamed to take hem to thyn ease. 

John Baret, of Bury St Edmunds, in 1463, left by will to one of the 
monks of Bury, his ivory tables (the tabulce. for writing on), and a pair of 
spectacles of silver-gilt : — " Item : To daun Johan Janyng, my tablees 
of ivory, with the combe, and a payre spectacles of silvir and ovir-'gilt." 
This shows that already in the middle of the fifteenth century, a pair . 
of spectacles was not an uncommon article. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Changes in English Domestic Majtneis during the period between the 
Reformation and the Commonwealth. — The Country Gentleman s 
House. — Its Hall. — The Fireplace and Fire. — Utensils. — Cookery. — 
Usual Hours for Meals. — Breakfast. — Dinner, and its Forms and 
Customs. — The Banquet. — Custom of Drinking Healths. 



THE Reformation brought with it, or at all events it was coeval with, 
a general revolution in society. Although the nobility still kept 
up much of their ancient state, feudalism was destroyed during the 
reigns of the first two Tudors, while the lower and middle classes of the 
population were rising in condition and in the consciousness of their 
own importance, and with this rise came an increase of domestic com- 
forts and social development. It was on the ruins of the monastic pro- 
perty, confiscated by Henry VIII., that the English gentlemen gained 
their highest position, and, by their independence of the old aristocracy, 
they assisted in finally breaking its power, and thus gave a new character 
to English society, which at the same time was experiencing influences 
that came successively from without. Till the reign of Elizabeth, and 
after her accession to the throne, there was a close connection with the 
Netherlands and Germany, and we imported most of our novelties and 
fashions from our Protestant neighbours on the Continent ; whilst, from 
Elizabeth's reign onwards, and with little intermission to.the present time, 
France has been our principal model for imitation. This is a point 
which is the more necessary to be observed in treating of this subject, 
because during the period between the Reformation and the Common- 
wealth, the art of engraving in this country had been carried to little 
perfection, and was comparatively rarely practised, and we are obliged 



448 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



to look for our pictoral illustrations of manners to the works of foreign 
artists. 

In towns, domestic architecture experienced no great change in the 
course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Small narrow streets, 
with buildings chiefly of the class we term half-timber houses— the best 
of which had their lower story of stone, while those above, each project- 




No. 288. — Houses in the Streets of a Town, Fifteenth Century. 



ing beyond the one below it, consisted of a timber framework filled up 
with bricks — occupied the greater part of the town, and gave it a compact 
appearance which was quite inconsistent with our modern notions of 
sanitary arrangement. In the interior the rooms were generally small 
and dark, but domestic comfort seems not to have been so much over- 
looked as we are in the habit of supposing. Our cut No. 288, taken 
from an engraving in the English edition of Barclay's " Ship of Fools," 
i 57°j gives us a good representation of the general appearance of houses 



THE HALL LN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 



449 



in a town at that period. In the country a greater change had taken 
place in all but the houses of the peasantry. The older castles had 
become obsolete, and, with the increasing power and efficiency of the 
laws, it was no longer necessary to consult strength before convenience. 
The houses of the gentry were, however, still built of considerable ex- 
tent, and during the sixteenth century the older domestic arrangements 
were only slightly modified. Now, however, instead of seeking a strong 
position, people chose situations that were agreeable and healthful, where 
they might be protected from inclemency of weather, and where gardens 
and^rchards might be planted advantageously. Thus, like the earlier 
monastic edifices, a gentleman's house was built more frequently on low 
ground than on a hill. 

In the sixteenth century, the hall continued to hold its position as the 




No. 289. — The " Hundred Men's Hall," at St Cross, near Winchester. 

great public apartment of the house, and in its arrangements it still 
differed little from those of an earlier date ; it was indeed now the only 
part of the house which had not been affected by the increasing taste for 
domestic privacy. We have many examples of the old Gothic hall in 
this country, not only as it existed and was used in the sixteenth century, 
but, in some cases, especially in colleges, still used for its original purposes. 



2 F 



45° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



One of the simplest, and at the same time best, examples is found in the 
Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester, and a sketch of the interior, as 
represented in our cut No. 289, will serve to give a general notion of the 
arrangements of this part of the mansion in former days. As the hall was 
frequently the scene of festivities of every description, a gallery for the 
musicians was considered one of its necessary appendages. In some 
cases, as at Madresfield in Worcestershire, a gallery ran round two or 
more sides of the hall ; but generally the music-gallery occupied one 
end of the hall, opposite the dais. Under it was a passage, separated 




No. 290. — Fireplace in the Great Hall at Penshurst, Kent. 



from the hall by a wooden screen, usually of panel-work, and having on 
the opposite side the kitchen and buttery. In the large halls, the fire- 
place still frequently occupied the centre of the hall, where there was a 
small, low platform of stone. This is distinctly seen in the foregoing 
view of the interior of the hall of St Cross. In our cut No. 290 we give 
another example of this kind of fireplace, from the hall at Penshurst in 
Kent, where it is still occupied by the iron dogs, or andirons, that sup- 
ported the fuel. It may be observed that these latter, in the North of 
England and in some other parts, were called cobirons. 

The implements attached to the fireplace had hitherto been few in 
number, and simple in character, but they now became more numerous. 



FIRE-IRONS. 45 1 



In the inventories previous to the sixteenth century they are seldom 
mentioned at all, and the glossaries speak only of tongs and bellows. 
In the will of John Baret of Bury, made in 1463, " a payre of tongys and 
a payre belwys " are mentioned. John Hedge, a large householder of 
the same town in 1504, speaks of "spytts, rakks, cobernys, aundernnys, 
trevettes, tongs, with all other iryn werkes moveabyll within my house 
longying." This' would seem to show that cobirons and andirons were 
not identical, and it has been supposed that the former denomination 
belonged more particularly to the rests for supporting the spit. The 
schoolmaster of Bury, in 1552, bequeathed to his hostess, "my cob- 
bornes, the fire pany (? pan), and the tonges." If we turn to the North, 
we find in the collection of wills published by the Surtees Society a 
more frequent enumeration of the fire implements. William Blakeson, 
prebendary of Durham, possessed in 1549 only "a payre of cobyrons 
and one payre of tongys." In 1551, William Lawson, of Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, had in his hall " one yryn chymney, and a poor, with one pake 
of tonges," which are valued at the rather high sum of thirty shillings. 
This is the first mention of the iron chimney, or grate, but it occurs con- 
tinually after the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1557, the "iron 
chymney " of the parish clerk of St Andrews in Newcastle was valued at 
twenty shillings. The fire implements in the hall of the farm-house at 
West Runcton, near Northallerton, in 1562, were "j. cryssett, ij. rachyn- 
crokes, j. pair of tonges, one paire off cobyrons, j. speitt, one paire off 
potes." We find the cresset frequently included among the implements 
attached to the fireplace. The racking-crook was the pothook. In 
1564, John Bynley, minor canon of Durham, had in his hall "one iron 
chimney, with a bake (back), porre (a por, or poker), tongs, fier shoel 
( fire-shovel), spette (spit), and a littell rake pertening thereto." The 
fire-irons in the hall of Margaret Cottam, widow, of Gateshead, in 1564, 
were " one iron chimney, one porr, one payre of toynges, gibcrokes, 
rakincroke, and racks." The gibcrokes was probably a sort of pothook 
or jack. Nearly the same list of articles occurs frequently in subsequent 
inventories. In 1567, a housekeeper of Durham had among other such 
articles "a gallous (gallo7us) of iron, with iiij. crocks." The gallows 
was, of course, the cross-bar of iron, which projected across the chimney, 
and from which the crooks or chains with hooks at the end for sustain- 



452 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



ing pots were suspended ; as the gallows turned upon hinges, the pot 
could be moved over the fire, or from it, at pleasure, without being taken 
from the hook, and as the crooks, of which there were usually more 
than one, were of different lengths, the pot might be placed lower to the 
fire or higher from it, at will. From the character of some of these 




No. 291. — Ornamental Fire-irons, Sixteenth Century. 

adjuncts to the fireplace, it is evident that the hall fire was frequently 
used for cooking. The sixteenth century was the period at which 
ornamentation was carried to a very high degree in every description of 
household utensil, and to judge from the valuation of some of these 
articles in the inventories, they were no doubt of elegant or elaborate 
work. Numerous examples of ornamental ironwork, specially applied 
to fire dogs or andirons, will be found in Mr M. A. Lower's interesting 



FIRE-IRONS. 



453 



paper on the ironworks of Sussex; and many others, still more elabo- 
rate, are preserved in some of our old gentlemen's houses in different 
parts of the country ; but this ornamentation was carried to a far higher 
degree in the great manufactories on the Continent, from whence our 
countrymen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries obtained a large 
portion of their richer furniture. The figure in the middle of the group 
of fire-irons represented in our cut No. 291, is an example of a fire-dog 
of this elaborate description, preserved 
in the collection of Count Brancaleoni, 
in Paris, whence also the other articles 
in the cut are taken. Most of them 
explain themselves ; the implement 
to the right is a somewhat singularly 
formed pair of tongs; that immediately 
beneath the fire-dog is an instrument 
for moving the logs of wood which then 
served as fuel. As a further example 
of the remarkable manner in which 
almost every domestic article was at this period adorned, we may point 
out a box-iron, for ironing linen, &c. (cut No. 292), which is also pre- 




No. 292. — A. Box-iron, Sixteenth Century. 




No. 293. — Fireplace and Pothook. 



served in one of the French collections; such an article was of course 
not made to be exposed to the action of the fire, and this circumstance 



454 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



gave rise to the contrivance of forming it into a box, with a separate 
iron which was to be heated and placed inside. 

The fire-irons, as we find them enumerated in writings or pictured 
in engravings, appear to have formed the same list, or nearly so, though 
of course differing in form and ornament according to the varying 
fashions of the day, until at a considerably later period they were reduced 
to the modern trio of shovel, poker, and tongs. The single pothook, 
with a contrivance for lengthening it and shortening it, is shown in our 
cut No. 293, taken from one of the remarkable wood engravings in 




No. 294. — The Fireplace and its uses. 



No. 295. — A Cook cleaning his Dishes. 



<; Der Weiss Konig," — a series of prints illustrative of the youthful life 
of Maximilian I. of Germany, who ascended the imperial throne in 1493. 
The engravings are of the sixteenth century, and the form of the fire- 
place belongs altogether to the age of the Renaissance. The gallows, 
with its pothooks or crokes of different lengths, appears in our cut No. 
294, taken from Barclay's "Ship of Fools," the edition of 1570, though 
the design is somewhat older. The method of attaching the crooks to 



THE FIREPLACE. 



455 



one side of the fireplace, when not in use, is exhibited in this engraving, 
as also the mode in which other smaller utensils were attached to the 
walls. In this latter instance there are no dogs or andirons in the fire- 
place, but the pot or boiler is simply placed upon the fire, without other 
support. There were, however, other methods of placing the pot upon 
the fire ; and in one of the curious wooden sculptures in the church of 
Kirby Thorpe, in Yorkshire, representing a cook cleaning his dishes, 
the boiler is placed over the fire in a sort of four-legged frame, as repre- 
sented in the preceding cut, No. 295. 

Early in the seventeenth century the fireplace had taken nearly its 




No. 296. — Frying Fritters. 



present form, although the dogs or andirons had not yet been super- 
seded by the grate, which, however, had already come into use. This 
later form of the fireplace is shown in our cut No. 296, taken from one 
of an interesting series of prints, executed by the French artist Abraham 
Bosse in the year 1633. It represents a domestic party frying fritters 



456 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

in Lent. One of the dogs is seen at the foot of the opening of the 
fireplace. 

In the sixteenth century, the articles of furniture in the hall con- 
tinued to be much the same as in the century preceding. It continued 
to be furnished with hangings of tapestry, but they seem not always to 
have been in use ; and they were still placed not absolutely against the 
wall, but apparently at a little distance from it, so that people might 
conceal themselves behind them. If the hall was not a very large one, 
a table was placed in the middle, with a long bench on each side. 
There was generally a cupboard, or a " hutch," if not more, with side 
tables, one or more chairs, and perhaps a settle, according to the taste 
or means oi the possessor. We hear now also of tables with leaves, 
and of folding-tables, as well as of counters, or desks, for writing, and 
dressers, or small cupboards. The two latter articles were evidently, 
from their names, borrowed from the French. Cushions were also kept 
in the hall, for the seats of the principal persons of the household, or 
for the females. The furniture of the hall of William Lawson of New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, in 155 1, consisted of one table of wainscot, valued 
at twenty shillings ; two double counters, valued together at thirty shil- 
lings ; a drawer and two forms, estimated at five shillings ; two cushions 
and two chairs, also valued at five shillings ; five other cushions, valued 
at twelve shillings ; two carpet cloths and a cupboard cloth, valued to- 
gether at ten shillings ; and the hangings in the hall, estimated to be 
worth fifty shillings. This seems to have been a very well furnished 
hall ; that of Robert Goodchild, parish clerk of St Andrew's in New- 
castle, in 1557, contained an almery (or large cupboard), estimated at 
ten shillings ; a counter " of the myddell bynde," six shillings ; a cup- 
board, three shillings and fourpence ; five basins and six lavers, eight 
shillings ; seventeen " powder {pewter) doblers," seventeen shillings ; 
six pewter dishes and a hand-basin, five shillings ; six pewter saucers, 
eighteen pence ; four pottle pots, five shillings and fourpence ; three pint 
pots and three quart pots, three shillings ; ten candlesticks, six shillings; 
a little pestle and a mortar, two shillings ; three old chairs, eighteen- 
pence ; six old cushions, two shillings ; and two counter-cloths. Much 
of the furniture of English houses at this time was imported from 
Flanders. Jane Lawson, in the year last mentioned, had in her hall at 



THE FURNITURE OF THE HALL. 457 

Little Burdon in Northumberland, " Flanders counters with their car- 
pets." She had also in the hall, a long side-table, three long forms and 
another form, two chairs, three stools, six new cushions and three old 
cushions, and an almery. The whole furniture of the hall of the rec- 
tory-house of Sedgefield in Durham, which appears to have been a large 
house and well entertained, consisted of a table of plane-tree with joined 
frame, two tables of fir with frames, two forms, a settle, and a pair of 
trestles. The hall of Bertram Anderson, a rich and distinguished mer- 
chant and alderman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1570, was furnished 
with two tables with the carpets {table covers), three forms, one dozen 
cushions, half-a-dozen green cushions, one counter with the carpet, two 
" basinges " (basins), and two covers, one chair, and one little chair. 
This is a striking proof of the rarity of chairs even at this late date. 
Buffet stools, which are supposed to be the stools with a flat top and a 
hole in the middle through which the hand might be passed to lift them, 
are also mentioned among the articles of furniture in the hall at this 
period. The furniture of the hall at the manor-house of Croxdale, in 
the county of Durham, in the year 157 1, consisted of one cupboard, 
one table, two buffet stools, and one chair ; yet Salvin of Croxdale was 
looked upon as one of the principal gentry of the Palatinate. In enum- 
erating the furniture of the ancient hall, we must not forget the arms 
which were usually displayed there, especially by such as had dependent 
upon them a certain number of men whom it was their duty or their 
pride to arm. The hall of a rich merchant of Newcastle, named John 
Wilkinson, contained, in 1571, the following furniture: one almery, one 
table of wainscot, one counter, one little counter, one dresser of wain- 
scot, one " pulk," three chairs, three forms, three buffet stools, six 
cushions of tapestry, six old cushions of tapestry, six green cushions, 
two long carpet cloths, two short carpet cloths, one say carpet cloth, 
the " hyngars" in the hall; on the almery head, one basin and ewer, one 
great charger, three new " doblers," one little chest for sugar, and one 
pair of wainscot tables ; and of arms, two jacks, three sallets of iron, 
one bow and two sheaves of arrows, three bills, and two halberts. Some 
of the entries in these inventories are amusing ; and, while speaking of 
arms, it may be stated that a widow lady of Bury, Mary Chapman, who 
would appear to have been a warlike dame, making her will in 1649, 



45 3 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

leaves to one of her sons, among other things, " also my muskett, rest, 
bandileers, sword, and head-piece, my jacke, a fine paire of sheets, and 
a hutche." In 1577, Thomas Liddell, merchant of Newcastle, had in 
his hall, " three tables of waynscoot, sex qwyshons of tapestery, a cow- 
borde, three wainscoot formes, two chayrs, three green table-clothes, 
fower footstoles, sixe quyshons, two candlesticks, a louckinge glasse, sexe 
danske pootts of powther [pewter), two basins, and two vewers (ewers), 
a laver and a basinge, fyve buffatt stules." It is curious thus to trace 
the furniture of the hall at different periods, and compare them with each 
other ; and we cannot but remark from the frequency with which the 
epithet old is applied to different articles, towards the end of the cen- 
tury, that the hall was beginning rapidly to fall into disuse. The cause 
of this was no doubt the increasing taste for domestic retirement, and 
the wish to withdraw from the publicity which had always attended the 
hall, and it gradually became the mere entrance-lobby of the house, the 
place where strangers or others were allowed to remain until their pre- 
sence had been announced, which is the sense in which we commonly use 
the word "hall," as part of the house, at the present day. In the enum- 
eration of the parts of a house given in the English edition of 
Comenius's " Janua Linguarum," in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, there is no mention of a hall. " A house," we are told in this 
quaint book, " is divided into inner rooms, such as are the entry, the 
stove, the kitchen, the buttery, the dining-room, the gallery, the bed- 
chamber, with a privy made by it ; baskets are of use for carrying things 
to and fro ; and chests (which are made fast with a key) for keeping 
them. The floor is under the roof. In the yard is a well, a stable, and 
a bath. Under the house is the cellar." 

It has already been remarked that tables with leaves begin to be 
mentioned frequently after the commencement of the sixteenth century. 
Andrew Cranewise, of Bury, in 1558, enumerates "one cupborde in the 
hall, one plaine table with one leafe." He speaks further on, in the same 
will, of " my best folte (fold or folding) table in the hall, and two great 
hutches." In 1556, Richard Claxton, of Old Park, in the county of 
Durham, speaks of a " folden-table " in the parlours, which was valued 
at two shillings. These folding-tables appear to have been made in a 
great variety of forms, some of which were very ingenious. Our cut No. 



METHODS OF LIGHTING. 



459 



297 represents a very curious folding-table of the sixteenth century, which 
was long preserved at Flaxton Hall, in Suffolk, but perished in the fire 
when that mansion was burnt a few years ago. As represented in the 
cut, which shows the table folded up so as to be laid aside, the legs pull 
out, and the one to the right fits into the lion's mouth, where it is 
secured by the pin which hangs beside it. 

The methods of lighting the hall at night were still rather clumsy and 
not very perfect. Of course, when the apartment was very large, a few 
candles would produce comparatively little effect, and it was therefore 
found necessary to use torches, and inflammable masses of larger size. 




No. 297.— A Folding-Table. 



One method of supplying the deficiency was to take a small pan, or port- 
able fireplace, filled with combustibles, and suspend it in the place where 
light was required. Such a receptacle was usually placed at the top of 
a pole, for facility of carrying about, and was called a cresset, from an 
old French word which meant a night-lamp. The cresset is mentioned 
by Shakespeare and other writers as though it were chiefly used in 
processions at night, and by watchmen and guides. The first figure in 
our cut No. 298, taken from Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 
represents one of the cressets carried by the marching watch of London 



460 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



in the sixteenth century. From the continual mention of the cresset 
along with the fire-irons of the hall, in the wills published by the Surtees 
Society, we can hardly doubt its being used, at least in the North of 
England, for lighting the hall itself. An improvement of the common 
cresset consisted in enclosing the flame, by whatever material it was fed, 
in a case made of some transparent substance, such as horn, and thus 
making it neither more nor less than a large lantern fixed on the end of 
a pole. The form of this implement was generally globular, and, no 
doubt from its appearance when carried in the night it was denominated 
a. moon. The "moon "was borne by servants before the carriages of 
their masters, to guide them along country lanes, and under other similar 
circumstances. The second figure in our cut No. 298 represents a 





No. 298. — Cresset and Moon. 



"moon" which was formerly preserved at Ightham Moat House, in 
Kent ; the frame was of brass, and the covering of horn. To assist in 
lighting the hall, sometimes candlesticks were fixed to the walls round 
the hall, and this perhaps will explain the rather large number of candle- 
sticks sometimes enumerated among the articles in that part of the house. 
In our cut No. 293, we have an example of a candlestick placed on a 
frame, which, turning on a pivot or hinges, may be turned back against the 
wall when not in use. 

During the period of which we are now speaking, almost everything 
connected with the table underwent great change. This was at least the 
case with resrard to the hours of meals. The usual hour of breakfast was 



MEAL-HOURS. 461 



seven o'clock in the morning, and seems scarcely to have varied. Dur- 
ing the sixteenth century, the hour of dinner was eleven o'clock, or just 
four hours after breakfast. "With us," says Harrison in his description 
of England, prefixed to " Holinshed's Chronicle," "the nobilitie, gentrie, 
and students (he means the Universities), doo ordinarilie go to dinner 
at eleven before noone, and to supper at five, or between five and sixe, 
at afternoone." Before the end of the century, however, the dinner 
hour appears to have varied between eleven and twelve. In a book en- 
titled the " Haven of Health," written by a physician named Cogan, and 
printed in 1584, we are told : " When foure houres be past after breake- 
fast, a man may safely take his dinner, and the most convenient time 
for dinner is about eleven of the clocke before noone. The usual time 
for dinner in the universities is at eleven, or elsewhere about noon." 
In Beaumont and Fletcher, the hour of dinner was still eleven : " I 
never come in to my dining-room," says Merrythought, in the " Knight 
of the Burning Pestle," " but at eleven and six o'clock." " What hour 
is 't, Lollis ? " asks a character in the " Changeling," by their contem- 
porary Middleton. " Towards eating-hour, sir." " Dinner time ? thou 
mean'st twelve o'clock." And other writers at the beginning of the 
seventeenth century speak of twelve o'clock and seven as the hours of 
dinner and supper. This continued to be the usual hour of dinner at 
the close of the same century. 

During the reign of Elizabeth, and afterwards, persons of both sexes 
appear to have broken their fast in the same substantial manner as was 
observed by the Percies at the beginning of the century, and as de- 
scribed in a previous chapter 5 yet, though generally but four hours in- 
terposed between this and the hour of dinner, people seem to have 
thought it necessary to take a small luncheon in the interval, which, no 
doubt from its consisting chiefly in drinking, was called a bever. " At 
ten," says a character in one of Middleton' s plays, " we drink, that 's 
mouth-hour ; at eleven, lay about us for victuals, that 's hand-hour ; at 
twelve, go to dinner, that 's eating-hour." " Your gallants," says 
Appetitus, in the old play of " Lingua," " never sup, breakfast, nor 
bever without me." 

The dinner was the largest and most ceremonious meal of the day. 
The hearty character of this meal is remarked by a foreign traveller in 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




England, who published his " Memoires et Observations " in French 
in 1698. " Les Anglois," he tells us, " mangent beaucoup a diner; ils 
mangent a reprises, et remplissent le sac. Leur souper est leger. 
Gloutons a midi, fort sobres au soir." In the sixteenth century, dinner 
still began with the same ceremonious washing of hands as formerly ; 
and there was considerable ostentation in the ewers and basins used for 
this purpose. Our cut No. 299 represents ornamental articles of this 
description, of the sixteenth century, taken from an engraving in Whit- 
ney's " Emblems," printed in 1586. This custom was rendered more 

necessary by the circumstance that 
at table people of all ranks used 
their fingers for the purposes to 
which we now apply a fork. This 
article was not used in England for 
the purpose to which it is now ap- 
-J plied until the reign of James I. It 
is true that we have instances of 
forks even so far back as the pagan 

No. 299. — A Basin and Ewer, Sixteenth Century. 

Anglo-Saxon period, but they are 
often found coupled with spoons, and on considering all the circum- 
stances, I am led to the conviction that they were in no instance used 
for feeding, but merely for serving, as we still serve salad and other 
articles, taking them out of the basin or dish with a fork and spoon. In 
fact, to those who have not been taught the use of it, a fork must neces- 
sarily be a very awkward and inconvenient instrument. We know that 
the use of forks came from Italy, the country to which England owed 
many of the new fashions of the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
It is curious to read Coryat's account of the usage of forks at table as 
he first saw it in that country in the course of his travels. " I observed," 
says he, " a custome in all those Italian cities and townes through which 
I passed, that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels, 
neither doe I thinke that any other nation of Christendome doth use it, 
but only Italy. The Italian, and also most strangers that are com- 
morant in Italy, doe alwaies at their meals use a little forke, when they 
cut their meate. For while with their knife which they hold in one 
hande they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten their forke, which 



INTRODUCTION OF FORKS. 463 

they hold in their other hande, upon the same dish, so that whatsoever 
he be that sitting in the company of any others at meale, should un- 
advisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers, from which all at 
the table do cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as 
having transgressed the laws of good manners, insomuch that for his error 
he shall be at the least browbeaten, if not reprehended in wordes. This 
forme of feeding I understand is generally used in all places of Italy, their 
forkes being for the most part made of yron or Steele, and some of 
silver, but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their 
curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means indure to have 
his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's fingers are not alike 
cleane. Hereupon I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion 
by this forked cutting of meate, not only while I was in Italy, but also 
in Germany, and oftentimes in England since I came home ; being 
once quipped for that frequent using of my forke by a certain learned 
gentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one Mr Lawrence Whittaker, who 
in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table furrifer, only for 
using a forke at feeding, but for no other cause." Furrifer, in Latin, it 
need hardly be observed, meant literally one who carries a fork, but its 
proper signification was a villain who deserves the gallows. 

The usage of forks thus introduced into England appears soon to 
have become common. It is alluded to more than once in Beaumont 
and Fletcher, and in Ben Jonson, but always as a foreign fashion. In 
Jonson's comedy of " The Devil is an Ass," we have the following 

dialogue : — 

Ulcere. Have I deserv'd this from you two, for all 
My pains at court to get you each a patent ? 

Gilt. For what ? 

Meerc. Upon my project o' the forks. 

Sle. Forks ? What be they ? 

Meerc. The laudable use of forks, 
Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy, 
To th' sparing o' napkins. 

In fact the new invention rendered the washing of hands no longer so 
necessary as before ; and though it was still continued as a polite form 
before sitting down to dinner, the practice of washing hands after dinner 
appears to have been entirely discontinued. 

Our cut No. 300 taken from the English edition of the " Janua Lin- 



464 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



guarum" of Comenius, represents the forms of dining in England under 
the Protectorate. It will be best described by the text which accom- 
panies it in the book, and in which each particular object is mentioned. 
" When a feast is made ready," we are told, " the table is covered with 
a carpet and a table-cloth by the waiters, who besides lay the trenchers, 
spoons, knives, with little forks, table-napkins, bread, with a salt-sellar. 
Messes are brought in platters, a pie in a plate. The guests, being 
brought in by the host, wash their hands, out of a laver or ewer, over a 
hand-basin, or bowl, and wipe them with a hand-towel ; then they sit at 
the table on chairs. The carver breaketh up the good cheer, and divid- 
eth it. Sauces are set amongst roste-meat in sawsers. The butler 



m& 




No. 300. — A Dinner-Party in the Seventeenth Century. 

filleth strong wine out of a cruse, or wine-pot, or flagon, into cups, or 
glasses, which stand on a cup-board, and he reacheth them to the mas- 
ter of the feast, who drinketh to his guests." It will be observed that 
one salt-cellar is here placed in the middle of the table. This was the 
usual custom ; and as one long table had been substituted for the several 
tables formerly standing in the hall, the salt-cellar was considered to 
divide the table into two distinct parts, guests of more distinction being 
placed above the salt, while the places below the salt were assigned to 
inferiors and dependants. This usage is often alluded to in the old 
dramatists. Thus, in Ben Jonson, it is said of a man who treats his 
inferiors with scorn, " he never drinks below the salt,''' i.e. he never ex- 
changes civilities with those who sit at the lower end of the table. And 



A BANQUET IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 465 

in a contemporary writer, it is described as a mark of presumption in 
an inferior member of the household " to sit above the salt." Our cut 
No. 301, taken from an engraving by the French artist, Abraham Bosse, 
published in 1633, represents one of the first steps in the laying out of the 




No. 301. — Laying out the Dinner-table, 1633. 

dinner-table. The plates, it will be seen, are laid, and the salt-cellar 

is duly placed in the middle of the table. The servant is now placing 

the napkins — 

The pages spread a table out of hand, 

And brought forth nap'ry rich, and plate more rich. 

— Harrington's Ariosto, Ixii. 71. 

The earlier half of the sixteenth century was the period when the 
pageantry of feasting was carried to its greatest degree of splendour. In 
the houses of the noble and wealthy, the dinner itself was laid out with 
great pomp, was almost always accompanied with music, and was not 
unfrequently interrupted with dances, mummings, and masquerades. A 
picture of a grand feast carried on in this manner is given in one of the 
illustrations to the German work on the exploits of the Emperor Maxi- 
milian, published at the time under the title of " Der Weiss Konig." 
An abridged copy of this engraving is given in our cut No. 302. The 
table profusely furnished, the rich display of plate on the cupboards, the 
band in front, and the mummers entering the hall, are all strikingly 
characteristic of the age. The dresser, or cupboard, was now one of 
the great means of display among the higher orders of society, who 
invested vast wealth in its furniture, consisting of vessels made of the 



2 G 



466 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS, 



precious metals and of crystal, sometimes set with precious stones, and 
often adorned with the most beautiful sculpture, or moulded into singu- 
lar or elaborate forms. So much attention was given to the. arrange- 
ment of the plate on the dresser, and to the ceremonies attending it, 
that it was made a point of etiquette how many steps, or gradations, 




No. 302. — Mummers at a Feast. 

on which the rows of plate were raised one above another, members of 
each particular rank of society might have on their cupboards. Thus, 
a prince of royal blood only might have five steps to his cupboard ; four 
were allowed to nobles of the highest rank, three to nobles under that 
of duke, two to knights-bannerets, and one to persons who were merely 



ORNAMENTAL PLATE. 467 



of gentle blood. These rules, however, were probably not universally 
obeyed. It was the duty of the butler to have charge of the plate in 
the hall, and his station there was usually at the side of the cupboard, 
as in the engraving taken from "Der Weiss Konig " (No. 302). Com- 
paratively few examples of the domestic plate of an early period have 
survived the revolutions of so many ages, during which they were often 
melted for the metal, and those which remain are chiefly in the posses- 
sion of corporations or public bodies ; but several fine collections of 
the ornamental plate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been 
made, and among these one of the best and most interesting is that of 
the late Lord Londesborough.* 

A dinner scene on a smaller scale is represented in our next cut (No. 
303), copied from one in which Albert Diirer represents Herodias 
dancing and performing before Herod at his solitary meal. This 
pageantry at dinner was succeeded, and apparently soon superseded, 
in the higher society by masques after dinner, which continued to be 
very fashionable until the breaking out of the civil commotions in the 
middle of the seventeenth century. During the period of the Pro- 
tectorate and the Commonwealth the forms of eating and drinking 
were much simplified, and all that expensive ostentation, which had 
arisen in the high times of feudal power, and had become burdensome 
to the aristocracy after it had been weakened by the reigns of the 
Tudors, disappeared. 

The regular order of service at dinner seems to have been still three 
courses, each consisting of a number and variety of dishes, according 
to the richness of the entertainment. To judge from the early cookery 
books, which have been described in a former chapter, our ancestors, 
previous to the sixteenth century, in the better classes of society, were 
not in the habit of placing substantial joints on the table, but instead 

* The reader who wishes for further information on the ornamental plate of the 
Middle Ages, and especially of the age of the Renaissance and succeeding period, 
may consult with advantage Lord Londesborough's handsome and valuable volume, 
the "Miscellanea Graphica," and the "Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of the 
Collection of' Antique Silver Plate formed by Albert, Lord Londesborough, now 
the property of Lady Londesborough," printed by her ladyship for private distribu- 
tion ; the latter of which contains no less than a hundred and fourteen examples of 
ornamental plate excellently engraved by Mr Fairholt, among which are several fine 
examples of the nef, or ship. 



468 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



of them had a great variety of made dishes, a considerable proportion of 
which were eaten with a spoon. At the tables of the great, there was 
a large attendance of servants, and the guests were counted off, not, as 
before, in couples, but in fours, each four being considered as one 
party, under the title of a mess, and probably having a dish among 
them, and served by one attendant. This custom is often alluded to in 
the dramatists, and it is hardly necessary to observe that it was the origin 




No. 303. — Herodias dancing before Herod. 

of our modern term in the army. The plate, as well as the porcelain 
and earthenware, used at table during the greater part of this period, 
was so richly diversified, that it would require a volume to describe it, 
nor would it be easy to pick out a small number of examples that might 
illustrate the whole. Our cut No. 304 represents a peculiar article 
of this period, which is not undeserving of remark, two knife-cases, 
made of leather, stamped and gilt. 

From what has been said, it will be seen that our popular saying of 



TABLE SERVICE OF THE LOWER CLASSES. 



469 



" the roast beef of old England," is not so literally true as we are 
accustomed to suppose. While, however, the style of living we have 
been describing prevailed generally among the higher ranks and the 




No. 304. — Knife-cases. 

richer portion of the middle classes, particularly in towns, that of the 
less affluent classes remained simple and even scanty, and a large 
portion of the population of the country pro- 
bably indulged in fresh meat only at inter- 
vals, or on occasions when they received it 
in their lord's kitchen or hall. A few plain 
jugs, such as those represented in our cut No. 
305, taken from a wooden sculpture in the 
church of Kirby Thorpe, in Yorkshire, with 
platters or trenchers in pewter or wood, formed 
the whole table service of the inferior classes. 
It was the revolution in the middle of the 
seventeenth century which first abolished this 
extravagant ostentation, and brought into 
fashion a plainer table and more substantial 
meats. A foreigner, who had been much in 
England in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and published his 
observations in French at the Hague in 1698, tells us that the English 
of that period were great eaters of meat — " I have heard," says he, " of 




No. 305. — Drinking Vessels. 



470 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

many people in England who have never eaten bread, and ordinarily 
they eat very little ; they nibble sometimes a little bit, while they eat 
flesh by great mouthfuls. Generally speaking, the tables are not 
served with delicacy in England. There are some great lords who 
have French and English cooks, and where you are served much 
in the French fashion ; but among persons of the middle condition 
of which I am speaking, they have ten or twelve sorts of common 
meat, which infallibly come round again in their turns at different 
times, and of two dishes of which their dinner is composed, as 
for instance, a pudding, and a piece of roast beef. Sometimes they 
will have a piece boiled, and then it has always lain in salt some days, 
and is flanked all round with five or six mounds of cabbage, carrots, 
turnips, or some other herbs or roots, seasoned with salt and pepper, 
with melted butter poured over them. At other times they will have 
a leg of mutton, roasted or boiled, and accompanied with the same 
delicacies ; poultry, sucking-pigs, tripe, and beef tongues, rabbits, 
pigeons, all well soaked with butter, without bacon. Two of these 
dishes, always served one after the other, make the ordinary dinner 
of a good gentleman, or of a good burgher. When they have boiled 
meat, there is sometimes somebody who takes a fancy to broth, which 
consists of the water in which the meat has been boiled, mixed with a little 
oatmeal, with some leaves of thyme, or sage, or other such small herbs. 
The pudding is a thing which it would be difficult to describe, on account 
of the diversity of sorts. Flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, fat, marrow, 
raisins, &c, are the more common ingredients of a pudding. It is 
baked in an oven ; or boiled with the meat ; or cooked in fifty other 
fashions. And they are grateful for the invention of puddings, for it 
is a manna to everybody's taste, and a better manna than that of the 
desert, inasmuch as they are never tired of it. Oh ! what an excellent 
thing is an English pudding ! To come in pudding time, is a proverbial 
phrase, meaning, to come at the happiest moment in the world. Make 
a pudding for an Englishman, and you will regale him, be he where he 
will. Their dessert needs no mention, for it consists only of a bit of 
cheese. Fruit is only found at the houses of great people, and only 
among few of them." The phrase, " to come in pudding time," occurs 
as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. 



A SUMPTUOUS BANQUET. 471 



The absence of the dessert at the English table, of which the writer 
just quoted complains, arose from the abandonment in the middle of the 
seventeenth century of an old custom. In the earlier part of that century 
and in the century previous, when the company rose from the dinner- 
table, they proceeded to what was then called the banquet, which was 
held in another apartment, and often in an arbour in the garden, or, as it 
was called, the garden-house. The banquet of an earlier period, the 
fifteenth century, was, as we have already seen, a meal after supper. In 
Massinger's play of the " City Madam," a sumptuous dinner is described 
as follows : — 

The dishes were raised one upon another, 

As woodmongers do billets, for the first, 

The second, and third course ; and most of the shops 

Of the best confectioners in London ransack'd 

To furnish out a banquet. 

In another of Massinger's dramas, one of the characters says : — 

We '11 dine in the great room, but let the musick 
And banquet be prepared here. 

It appears, therefore, that the banquet was often accompanied with 
music. At the banquet the choice wines were brought forth, and the 
table was covered with pastry and sweetmeats, of which our forefathers at 
this period appear to have been extremely fond. A usual article at the 
banquet was marchpanes, or biscuits made of sugar and almonds, in 
different fanciful forms, such as men, animals, houses, &c. There was 
generally one at least in the form of a castle, which the ladies and gentle- 
men were to batter to pieces in frolic, by attacking it with sugar-plums. 
Taylor, the water-poet, calls them — 

Castles for ladies, and for carpet knights, 

Unmercifully spoil'd at feasting fights, 

Where battering bullets are fine sugared plums. 

On festive occasions, and among people who loved to pass their time at 
table, the regular banquet seems to have been followed by a second, or, as 
it was called, a rere-banquet. These rere-banquets are mentioned by the 
later Elizabethan writers, generally as extravagances, and sometimes with 
the epithet of " late," so that perhaps they took the place of the soberer 
supper. People are spoken of as partaking " somewhat plentifully 



472 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

of wine " at these rere-banquets. The rere-supper was still in use, and 
appears also to have been a meal distinguished by its profusion both in 
eating and drinking. It was from the rere-supper that the roaring-boys, 
and other wild gallants of the earlier part of the seventeenth century, 
sallied forth to create noise and riot in the streets. 

One of the great characteristics of the dinner-table at this period was 
the formality of drinking, especially that of drinking healths, so much 
cried down by the Puritans. This formality was enforced with great 
strictness and ceremony. It was not exactly the modern practice of giving 
a toast, but each person in turn rose, named some one to whom he indi- 
vidually drank (not one of the persons present), and emptied his cup. 
" He that begins the health," we are told in a little book published in 
1623, ".first uncovering his head, he takes a full cup in his hand, and 
setting his countenance with a grave aspect, he craves for audience; 
silence being once obtained, he begins to breathe out the name, per- 
adventure, of some honourable personage, whose health is drunk to, and 
he that pledges must likewise off with his cap, kiss his fingers, and bow 
himself in sign of a reverent acceptance. When the leader sees his 
follower thus prepared, he sups up his broth, turns the bottom of the cup 
upward, and, in ostentation of his dexterity, gives the cup a phillip to 
make it cry twango. And thus the first scene is acted. The cup being 
newly replenished to the breadth of a hair, he that is the pledger must 
now begin his part ; and thus it goes round throughout the whole com- 
pany." In order to ascertain that each person had fairly drunk off his 
cup, in turning it up he was to pour all that remained in it on his nail, 
and if there were too much to remain as a drop on the nail without 
running off, he was made to drink his cup full again. This was termed 
drinking on the nail, for which convivialists invented a mock Latin 
phrase, and called it drinking saper-nagulum, or sufier-naculum. 

This custom of pledging in drinking was as old as the times of the 
Anglo-Saxons, when it existed in the "wass heil," and " drinc heil," 
commemorated in the story of the British Vortigern and the Saxon 
Rowena, and it is alluded to in several ballads of the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries, as in that of "King Edward and the Shepherd," 
where the man who drinks pledges his companion with the word " passe- 
lodion," and the other replies by " berafrynde," and in that of " The 



DRINKING HEALTHS. 473 



Kyng and the Hermyt," where the words of pledging and reply are 
" fusty bandyas," and " stryke pautnere." Both these ballads are printed 
in Hartshorne's " Ancient Metrical Tales." The drinking of the health 
of absent individuals appears to have been introduced at a later period, 
and was carried to its greatest degree of extravagance on the Continent. 
The person whose health a man gave was usually expected to be his 
mistress ; and in France he was expected, in doing this, to drink as many 
times his glass or cup full of wine as there were letters in her name. 
Thus, in Ronsard's " Bacchanales," the gallant drinks nine times to his 
mistress Cassandre, because there were nine letters in her name— 

Neuf fois, au nom de Cassandre, 

Je vois prendre 
Neuf fois du vin du flacon ; 
Affin de neuf fois le boire 

En memoire 
Des neuf lettres de son nom. 

And a less celebrated poet, of a rather later date, Guillaume Colletet, in 
a piece entitled " Le Trebuchement de lTvrongne," printed at Paris in 
1627, introduces one of his personages drinking six times to his mistress, 
because her name was Cloris — 

Six fois je m'en vas boire au beau nom de Cloris, 
Cloris, le seul desir de ma chaste pensee. 

The manner of pledging at table, as it still existed in England, is 
described rather ludicrously in the "Memoires d'Angleterre," of the 
year 1698, already quoted. "While in France," the author says, "the 
custom of drinking healths is almost abolished among people of any 
distinction, as being equally importunate and ridiculous, it exists here in 
all its ancient force. To drink at table, without drinking to the health 
of some one in especial, among ordinary people, would be considered 
as drinking on the sly, and as an act of incivility. There are in this 
proceeding two principal and singular grimaces, which are universally 
observed among people of all orders and all sorts. It is, that the person 
to whose, health another drinks, if he be of inferior condition, or even 
equal, to that of him who drinks, must remain as inactive as a statue 
while the drinker drinks. If, for instance, he is in the act of taking 
something from a dish, he must suddenly stop, return his fork or spoon 



474 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

to its place, and wait, without stirring more than a stone, until the other 
has drunk ; after which, the second grimace is to make him an iriclinabo; 
at the risk of dipping his periwig in the gravy in his plate. I confess 
that, when a foreigner first sees these manners, he thinks them laughable. 
Nothing appears so droll as to see a man who is in the act of chewing 
a morsel which he has in his mouth, of cutting his bread, of wiping his 
mouth, or of doing anything else, who suddenly takes a serious air, when 
a person of some respectability drinks to his health, looks fixedly at this 
person, and becomes as motionless as if a universal paralysis had seized 
him, or he had been struck by a thunderbolt. It is true that, as good 
manners absolutely demand this respectful immobility in the patient, it 
requires also a little circumspection in the agent. When any one will 
drink to the health of another, he must fix his eye upon him for a 
moment, and give him the time, if it be possible, to swallow his morsel." 
It is hardly necessary to observe that this custom is the origin of our 
modern practice of " taking wine " with each other at table, which is 
now also becoming obsolete. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Household Furniture. — The Parlour. — The Chamber. 

AS social peace and security became more established in the country, 
people began to be more lavish in all the articles of house- 
hold furniture, which thus became much more numerous during the 
period of which we are now treating. It also went through its fashions 
and its changes, but in the progress of these changes, it became less 
ponderous and more elegant. Until the middle of the sixteenth century, 
and perhaps later in some parts of the island, where social progress was 
slower, the old arrangements of a board laid upon trestles for a table 
still prevailed, though it was gradually disappearing ; and, although the 
term of "laying" the board in a literal sense was no longer applicable, 




No. 306.— Table of Sixteenth Century. 



it has continued to be used figuratively, even to our own times. Richard 
Kanam, of Soham, in the county of Cambridge, whose will was proved 
so late as the 12th of April 1570, left, among other household furniture, 
" one table with a payer of tressels, and a thicke forme." The first step 



476 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



in the change from tables of this kind appears to have been to fix the 
trestles to the board, thus making it a permanent table. The whole 
was strengthened by a bar running from trestle to trestle, and orna- 
mental wood-work was afterwards substituted in place of the trestles. 
A rather good example of a table of this description is given in the cut 
on the preceding page (No. 306), taken from that well-known publi- 
cation, the " Stultifera Navis " of Sebastian Brandt. This, however, was 
a clumsy construction, and it soon gave way to the table with legs, the 
latter being usually turned on the lathe, and sometimes richly carved. 
This carving went out of use in the unostentatious days of the Common- 
wealth and the Protectorate, to make way for plain table legs, and it 
never quite recovered its place. 

We have seen already that in the latter part of the previous century, 
in the chairs and stools, the joinery work of Flanders was taking the 




No. 307. — Henry VIIT.'s Chair. 



place of the older rude and clumsy seats. This taste still prevailed in 
the earlier half of the sixteenth century, and a large proportion of the 
furniture used in this country, as well as of the earthenware and other 
household implements, during the greater part of that century, were 
imported from Flanders and the Netherlands. Hence, in the absence 



CHAIRS AND COUCHES. 



477 




No. 308. — Chair of Duke de Nivernois. 



of engravings at home, we are led to look at the works of the Flemish 
and German artists for illustrations of domestic manners at this period. 
The seats of the description just 
mentioned were termed joint (or 
joined) stools or chairs. A rather 
fine example of a chair of this work, 
which is, as was often the case, three- 
cornered, is preserved in the Ash- 
molean Museum at Oxford, where 
it is reported to have been the chair 
of Henry VIII., on what authority 
I know not. It is represented in 
our cut No. 307. These "''joined" 
chairs and stools were laid aside for 
furniture of a more elegant form, 
which was used during the reign of 
Elizabeth and her immediate suc- 
cessors, and of which examples are so common that it is hardly necessary 
to give one here. This fashion appears to have been brought from 
France. An example of rather peculiar style is given in our cut No. 
308, taken from a picture executed in 1587, representing Louis de Gon- 
zagues, Duke of Nivernois. 

Hitherto the cushions were merely adjuncts to the chairs, but by 
another advance in convenience the cushion was soon made as a part of 
the chair or stool, which at the same time became simpler in form again. 
Our cut No. 309, taken from one of the prints of Abraham Bosse, dated 
in 1633, represents the general character of the chairs and stools used 
in France at that date, as they are drawn in the works of this artist, and 
also the manner in which they were arranged round a room when not 
in use. On the left appears the end of a cushioned bench, which was 
generally of the length of two or three stools, and appears as a common 
article of furniture. Among other articles of furniture now introduced 
was the couch, or, as we should call it, the sofa. This was called, in 
the age of Shakespeare, a day-bed, and appears to have been in some 
discredit, as an article indicating excess of luxury. Large cupboards, 
usually termed court-cupboards, and often very richly carved, were 



478 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



now in general use, for containing, under lock and key, the plate and 
other valuables. In allusion to the carvings on these cupboards, which 
usually consisted of faces more or less grotesque, and not very artificially 
executed, Corbet, in his " Iter Boreale," speaks of a person — 

. With a lean visage, like a carv'd face 
On a court-cupboard. 

The sixteenth century was especially the age of tapestries, and no 
gentleman could consider his rooms furnished if they wanted these 
important adjuncts. They were now elaborately worked into great 
historical pictures, sacred or profane, or mythological or other subjects, 
to suit the varieties of tastes. Sir John Elyot, in his " Governor," re- 




No. 309. — Stools and Chairs of the age of Charles I. 



minds his readers that " semblable decking oughte to bee in the house 
of a noblemanne, or man of honoure ; I meane concerning ornaments 
of hall and chambers in arras, painted tables, and images concernynge 
historyes, wherein is represented some monument of vertue most cun- 
ningly," &c. At the commencement of the seventeenth century this 
practice was already beginning to go out of fashion, and it was not long 
afterwards that it was entirely laid aside : and the walls were again 
covered with panels, or painted, or whitewashed, and adorned with pic- 
tures. In our last cut (No. 309) of the date of 1633, we see the walls 
thus decorated with paintings. 

The rapid social revolution which was now going on, gradually pro- 



THE PARLOUR AND ITS FURNITURE. 



479 




No. 310. — A Chandelier of the Sixteenth 
Century. 



duced changes in most of the articles of domestic economy. Thus, the 
old spiked candlestick >vas early in 
the century superseded by the 
modern socket candlestick. The 
chandelier represented in our cut 
No. 310, taken from one of Albert 
Diirer's prints of the " Life of the 
Virgin," published in 1509, in its 
spikes for the candles and its other 
characteristics, belongs to a ruder 
and earlier style of household furni- 
ture, and has nothing in common 
with the rich chandeliers which now 
began to be used. 

The parlour appears in the six- 
teenth century to have been a room the particular use of which was in a 
state of transition. Subsequently, as domestic life assumed greater 
privacy than when people lived publicly in the hall, the parlour became 
the living room ; but in the sixteenth century, though in London it was 
already used as the dining-room, in the country it appears to have been 
considered as a sort of amalgamation of a store-room and a bedroom. 
This is best understood from the different inventories of its furniture 
which have been preserved. In 1558, the parlour of Robert Hyndmer, 
rector of Sedgefield, in the county of Durham, contained — " a table 
with a joined frame, two forms, and a carpet; carved cupboards; a plain 
cupboard ; nine joined stools; hangings of tapestry; and a turned 
chair." In the parlour at Hilton Castle, in the same county, in 1559, 
there were — " one iron chimney, two tables, one counter, two chairs, 
one cupboard, six forms, two old carpets, and three old hangings." In 
1564, Margaret Cottom, a widow of Gateshead, had in her parlour — 
" one inner bed of wainscot, a stand, a bed, a presser of wainscot, three 
chests, a Dantzic coffer ; " a considerable quantity of linen and cloth of 
different kinds, and for different purposes ; " tallow candles, and wooden 
dishes, a feather bed, a bolster, and a cod (pillow), two coverlets, two 
happyings {coverlets of a coarser kind), three blankets, three cods {pillows), 
with an old mattress ; five cushions, a steel cap, and a covering ; a tin 



480 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

bottle, a cap-case with a lock." In the house of William Dalton, a 
wealthy merchant of Durham, in 1556, the parlour must have been very- 
roomy indeed to contain all the " household stuff " which it holds in the 
inventory, namely, " a chimney, with a pair of tongs ; a bedstead close 
made ; a feather-bed, a pair of sheets, a covering of apparels, an ' ovese ' 
bed, a covering wrought of silk ; a cod {pillow), and a pillow-bere ; a 
trundle-bed, a feather-bed, a twilt {quilt), a happing {coverlet), and a 
bolster ; a stand-bed, a feather-bed, a mattress, a pair of blankets, a red 
covering, a bolster, and curtains ; eight cods, and eight pillow-beres ; 
seven pair of linen sheets ; eight pair of strakin {a sort 0/ kersey) sheets ; 
six pair of harden {hemperi) sheets ; thirteen yards of diaper tabling ; ten 




No. 311. — A Dying Man and his Treasures. 

yards and a half of table-cloth ; twenty-one yards of towelling ; four 
hand towels ; two dozen napkins ; five pillow-beres ; two head sheets ; 
a pair of blankets ; two ' overse ' beds, and three curtains ; a cupboard ; 
a table, with a carpet ; a counter, with a carpet ; a Dantzic chest ; a 
bond chest ; a bond coffer ; an ambry ; a long settle, and a chair ; 
three buffet stools ; a little stool ; two forms ; red hangings ; a painted 
cloth ; three chests ; a stand-bed, a pair of blankets, two sheets, a 
covering, and two cods; an 'ambre call.'" In 1567, the parlour at 
Beaumont Hill, a gentleman's house in the north, contained the follow- 
ing furniture : — " One trundle-bed, with a feather-bed ; two coverlets, a 
bolster, two blankets, two carpet table-cloths, two coverlets, one presser, 



THE FURNITURE OF A BED-CHAMBER. 



481 



a little table, one chest, three chairs, and three forms." In other in- 
ventories, down to the end of the century, we find the parlour con- 
tinuing to be stored in this indiscriminate manner. 

This period also differs from former periods in the much greater 
number of beds, and greater abundance of bed-furniture, we find in the 
houses. We have often several beds in one chamber. Few of the 
principal bedrooms had less than two beds. The form of the bedstead 
was now almost universally that with four posts. Still in the engravings 
of the sixteenth century, we find the old couch-bed represented. Such 
appears to be the bed in our cut No. 311, taken from Whitney's " Em- 
blems," an English book printed in Leyden at 1586. We have here 




No. 312. — A Bed-chamber and its Furniture. 

another, and rather a late example, of the manner in which money was 
hoarded up in chests in the chambers. The couch-bed is still more 
distinctly shown in our cut No. 312, taken from Albert Durer's print of 
St Jerome, dated in 15 n. This print is remarkable for its detail of the 
furniture of a bed-chamber, and especially for the manner in which the 
various smaller articles are arranged and suspended to the walls. Not 



2 H 



482 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 




No. 313. — A Time-piece, &c. 



the least remarkable of these articles is the singular combination of a 
clock and an hour-glass, which is placed against the wall as a time- 
piece. This seems, however, to have been not uncommon. A time- 
piece of the same kind is represented in our cut No. 313, which is 
taken from a print of St Jerome at prayer, by Hans Springen Kelle, 
without date, but evidently belonging to the earlier half of the sixteenth 
century. The method of suspending or attaching to the walls the 

smaller articles in common use, such as 
scissors, brushes, pens, papers, &c, is here 
the same as in the former. Our next cut 
(No. 314), from a print by Aldegraver, 
dated in 1553, represents evidently a large 
four-posted bedstead, which is remarkable 
for its full and flowing curtains. The 
plate appears here to be kept in the bed- 
chamber. Chests, cupboards, presses, 
&c, become now very numerous in the 
bedrooms, and Ave begin to meet with 
tables and chairs more frequently. In 1567, the principal chamber in 
the house of Mrs Elizabeth Hutton, at Hunwick, contained the follow- 
ing articles : — " In napery, in linen sheets, sixteen pair ; certain old 
harden {Jmnfieii) sheets, and sixteen pillowberes (pillotv-cases) ; two 
Dantzic chests, a little chest bound with iron, a candle-chest, and 
another old chest ; a press with two floors and five doors ; a folding- 
table, seven little cushions, and two long cushions of crool {a sort of fine 
worsted) wrought with the needle, and a carpet cloth that is in working 
with crools for the same ; six feather beds, with six bolsters, and a 
coarse feather-bed tick ; eight mattresses, and nine bolsters ; twelve 
pillows, twelve pair of blankets, and six happings ; twenty coverlets, 
three coverings for beds of tapestry, and two of dornix {Tournay); a 
carpet cloth of tapestry work, five yards long, and a quarter deep ; five 
standing-beds, with cords ; two testers with curtains of saye, and two 
testers with curtains of crool." In the principal chamber in the house 
of Lady Catherine Hedworth, in 1568, the following furniture is 
enumerated : — " One trussing-bed, one feather-bed, one pair of blankets, 
one pair of sheets, one bolster, one pillow with a housewife's covering, 



THE FURNITURE OF THE BED-CHAMBER. 



483 



four pillows, two Flanders chests, one almery, two cupboards, three 
coffers, two cupboard stools, three buffet forms, one little buffet stool, 
two little coffers, five mugs, three old cushions." The principal cham- 
ber of Thomas Sparke, suffragan Bishop of Berwick, whose goods were 
appraised in 1572, was furnished with the following articles: — "A 
stand-bed, with a testron of red saye and fringe, and a truckle-bed ; a 
Cypres chest, a Flanders chest, a desk, three buffet stools ; the said 
chamber hung with red saye." At Crook Hall, in the suburbs of 




No. 314. — A Bed of the Sixteenth Century. 



Durham, in 1577, the principal chamber contained three beds ; another 
chamber contained four beds; and a third two' beds. These lists 
furnish good illustrations of the various prints from which we have 
already given some sketches. 

Our cut No. 315 represents the usual form of the bedstead in the 
seventeenth century, and the process of " making " the bed ; it is taken 
from a print by the French artist, Abraham Bosse, of the date 1631. 
Another of his prints, of the same date, has furnished us with a sketch of 



4 8 4 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



a bedroom party (cut No. 316), which is no inapt illustration of domestic 




No. 315. — A Bed of the Seventeenth Century. 

manners in the seventeenth century. It represents a custom which pre- 




No. 316. — A Bedroom Party. 

vailed especially in France. A woman, after childbirth, kept her room 



A SINGULAR CUSTOM. 485 



in state, and with great ceremony, and received there daily her female 
acquaintances, who passed the afternoon in gossip. This practice, and 
especially the conversation which took place at it, were frequent sub- 
jects of popular satire, and formed the groundwork of one of the most 
celebrated books of the reign of Louis XIIL, entitled " Les Caquets de 
l'Accouche'e," first published in 1622. An edition of this curious satire 
has been recently published by M. Ed. Fournier, in the introduction to 
which, as well as in the text, the reader will find abundant information 
on this subject. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



Occupations of the Ladies. — Games and Enjoyments. — Roughness of 
English Sports at this Period. — The Hothouses, or Baths. — The 
Ordinaries. — Domestic Pets. — Treatment of Children. — Methods of 
Locomotion. — Conclusion. 

^RING the period at which we are now arrived, almost all the 
relations of domestic life underwent a great change, and nothing 
hardly could produce a wider difference than that between the manners 
and sentiments of the reign of Henry VII. , and those of that of Charles 
II. This was especially observable in the occupations of the female sex, 
which were becoming more and more frivolous. In the earlier portion 
of the period referred to, women in general were confined closely to 
their domestic labours, in spinning, weaving, embroidering, and other 

work of a similar kind. A hand- 
loom was almost a necessary article 
of furniture in a well - regulated 
household, and spinning was so uni- 
versal an occupation, that we read 
sometimes of an apartment in the 
house set apart for it — a family 
spinning-room. Even to this pre- 
sent day, in legal language, the only 
occupation acknowledged, as that 
of an unmarried woman, is that of 
a spinster. Our cut (No. 317) re- 
presents a party of ladies at their domestic labours ; it is taken from 
Israel van Mechelin's print of " The Virgin ascending the Steps of the 
Temple," where this domestic scene is introduced in a side compart- 




No. 317. — Ladies at Work: 



GAMBLING. 



487 



ment. Two are engaged at the distaff, the old poetical emblem ot the 
sex. Another is cutting out the cloth for working, with a pair of shears 
of very antiquated form. The shape of the three-cornered joined chair 
in this group is worthy of remark. The female in our cut No. 318 is 
also seated in a chair of rather peculiar construction, though it has oc- 
curred before at an earlier period (cut No. 255, p. 385), and we meet 
with it again in our next cut (No. 319). It is what was sometimes 
called a folding-chair. This cut is taken from one of the illustrations 
to the English edition of Erasmus's " Praise of Folly," printed in 1676, 




No. 318. — A Lady at the Loom. 

but it is a copy of the earlier originals. The great weaving establish- 
ments in England appear to have commenced in the sixteenth century, 
with the Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands. 

The old domestic games continued to be practised in the middle and 
upper classes of society, although they were rather extensively super- 
seded by the pernicious rage for gambling which now prevailed through- 
out English society. This practice had been extending itself ever since 
the beginning of the fifteenth century, and had been accompanied with 
another evil practice among the ladies, that of drinking. It need hardly 
be observed that these two vices furnished constant themes to the 
dramatists and satirists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; the 
example set by the court under James I. caused them to increase 
greatly, and they rose to the highest pitch of extravagance under 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Charles II. Barclay's " Ship of Fools " (the early English edition) has 
furnished us with the group of female gamesters represented in our cut 
No. 319. It will be seen that the ladies are playing with cards and dice, 




No. 319. — A Party of Ladies, 



and that the ale jug is introduced as an accompaniment. In fact we 
must look upon it as a tavern-party, and the round table, as far as we 




No. 320. — A Gamblers' Dispute. 



can judge, appears to be fixed in the ground. The same book furnishes 
us with an illustration (cut No. 320), in which two gamblers are quarrel- 
ling over a game at backgammon. A child is here the jug-bearer or 



GAMBLING. 



489 



guardian of the liquor. Our cut No. 321 represents a gambling scene 




No. 321. — A Party at Dice. 

of a rather later period, taken from Whitney's " Emblems," printed in 
1586 ; dice are here the implements of play. 




No. 322. — A Gambling-party of the Sixteenth Century. 

A very curious piece of painted glass in the possession of Mr 



49° 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Fairholt, of German manufacture, and forming part, apparently, of a 
series illustrative of the history of the Prodigal Son, represents a party 
of gamblers, of the earlier part of the sixteenth century, who are playing 
with two dice. It is copied in our cut No. 322. The original bears 
the inscription, " Jan Van Hassell Tryngen sin hausfrau" with a mer- 
chant's mark and the date 1532. Three dice, however, continued to be 
used long after this date, and are, from time to time, alluded to during 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

I have, in a former chapter, traced the history of playing-cards down 
to the latter half of the fifteenth century. After that time, they are 
frequently mentioned. They formed the common amusement in the 




No. 323. — Cards early in the Sixteenth Century. 

courts of Scotland and England under the reigns Henry VII. and 
James IV. ; and it is recorded that when the latter monarch paid his first 
visit to his affianced bride, the young Princess Margaret of England, 
" he founde the quene playing at the cardes." 

In Germany at this time card-playing was carried to an extravagant 
degree, and it became an object of attack and satire to the reformers 
among the clergy. Our cut No. 323 represents a German card-party 
in a tavern, taken from an early painted coffer in the Museum of Old 
German Art at Nuremberg. The design of the cards is that of packs 
of fancifully ornamented cards made in Germany at the close of the 
fifteenth century. The German satirists of that age complain that the 



CARDS AND DICE. 491 



rage for gambling had taken possession of all classes of society, and 
levelled all ranks, ages, and sexes ; that the noble gambled with the 
commoner, and the clergy with the laity. Some of the clerical refor- 
mers declared that card-playing as well as dice was a deadly sin, and 
others complained that this love of gambling had caused people to 
forget all honourable pursuits. The clergy, moreover, complained that 
it acted upon people's tempers, and that it had greatly increased the 
prevalence of the sin of blasphemy. 

A similar outcry was raised in our own country ; and a few years later 
ii arose equally loud. A short anonymous poem on the ruin of the 
realm, belonging apparently to the earlier part of the reign of Henry 
VIII. (MS. Harl. No. 2252, fol. 25, v°), complains of the nobles and 

gentry — 

Before thys tyme they lovyd for to juste, 

And in shotynge chefely they sett ther mynde, 
And ther landys and possessyons now sett they nioste, 
And at cardes and dyce ye may them ffynde. 

" Cardes and dyce " are from this time forward spoken of as the great 
blot on contemporary manners ; and they seem for a long time to have 
driven most other games out of use. Roy, in his remarkable satire 
against Cardinal Wolsey, complains that the bishops themselves were 
addicted to gambling— 

To play at the cardes and dyce 
Some of theym are no thynge nyce, 
Both at hasard and mom-chaunce. 

The rage for cards and dice prevailed equally in Scotland. Sir David 
Lindsay's Popish parson, in 1535, boasts of his skill in these games — 

Thoch I preich nocht, I can play at the caiche ; 
I wot there is nocht ane amang yow all 
Mair ferylie can play at the fute-ball ; 
And for the cartis, the tabels, and the dyse, 
Above all parsouns I may beir the pryse. 

The same celebrated writer, in a poem against Cardinal Beaton, repre- 
sents that prelate as a great gambler — 

In banketting, playing at cartis and dyce, 
Into sic wysedome I was haldin wyse, 
And spairit nocht to play with king nor knicht 
Thre thousand crownes of golde upon ane night. 



492 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

Though gardening and horticulture in general, as arts, were under- 
going considerable improvement during this period, the garden itself 
appears to have been much more neglected, except as far as it was the 
scene of other pastimes. A bowling-green was the most important part 
of the pleasure-garden in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and 
bowls, and exercises of a similar character, were the favourite amuse- 
ments of all classes. The gardens themselves, which were apart from 
the house, and made more retired by lofty walls inclosing them, were 
usually adorned with alcoves and summer-houses, or, as they were then 
more usually termed, garden-houses, but these were chiefly celebrated, 
especially in the seventeenth century, as places of intrigue. There are 
continual allusions to this usage in the popular writers of the time. 
Thus, one of the personages in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Woman- 
Hater " exclaims, " This is no garden-house : in my conscience she went 
forth with no dishonest intent." And, in the play of the " Mayor of 
Quin sborough, " — 

Poor soul, she 's entic'd forth by her own sex 
To be betray'd to man, who in some garden-house, 
Or remote walk, taking his lustful time, 
Binds darkness on her eyes, surprises her. 

A character in another old play, " The London Prodigal," seeking em- 
ployment of a rather equivocal character, says, " Now God thank you, 
sweet lady, if you have any friend, or garden-house, where you may 
employ a poor gentleman as your friend, I am yours to command in all 
secret service." 

Amid the gaiety which was so especially characteristic of this age, a 
spirit of vulgar barbarity had arisen and^ spread itself very widely, and 
the popular games most practised were in general coarse and cruel. A 
foreign writer already quoted, but one who was evidently a very unpre- 
judiced observer, has left us some rather amusing remarks on this subject 
which are worthy of being repeated. " The English," he says, " have 
games which are peculiar to them, or at least which they affect and 
practise more than people do elsewhere. To see cocks fight is a royal 
pleasure in England. Their combats of bulls and dogs, of bears and 
dogs, and sometimes of bulls and bears, are not combats to the last 
gasp, like those of cocks. Everything that is called fighting is a deli- 



THE ENGLISH LOVE OF A FAIR FIGHT. 493 

cious thing to an Englishman. If two little boys quarrel in a street, the 
passers stop, make in a moment a ring round them, and encourage them 
to settle it by blows of the fist. If it comes to fighting, each takes off 
his cravat and his jacket, and gives them in charge to one of the com- 
pany ; then begin the blows of the fist, in the face if possible, the blows 
of the foot on their shins, the pulling of one another by the hair, &c. 
The one who has knocked the other down, may give him one blow or 
two when he is down, but no more, and every time the one who is down 
will rise, the other must return to the combat as long as he pleases. 
During the combat, the circle of spectators encourage the combatants 
to the great joy of their hearts, and never separate them, so long as 
things are done according to rule. And these spectators are not only 
other children, and street porters, but all sorts of respectable people, 
some of whom make their way through the crowd to see nearer, others 
mount upon the shops, and all would pay for places, if stages could be 
built up in a moment. The fathers and mothers of the little boys who 
are fighting look on like the others, and encourage the one who gives 
way, or is wanting in strength. These kind of combats are less frequent 
among grown-up men than among children, but they are not uncommon. 
If the driver of a hackney-coach has a dispute about his fare, with a 
gentleman whom he has carried, and the gentleman offers to settle the 
dispute by fighting, the coachman agrees to it willingly. The gentle- 
man takes off his sword, disposes of it in some shop, with his walking- 
stick, his gloves, and his cravat, and fights in the manner I have 
described. If the coachman is well beaten, which is almost always the 
case, he is considered as paid ; but if he beats, he who is beaten must 
pay the sum that was in question, and that which caused the quarrel. 
I once saw the late Duke of Grafton fighting in the open street in the 
middle of the Strand with a coachman, whom he thrashed in a terrible 
manner. In France, we treat such kind of people with blows of a stick, 
or, sometimes, of the flat of the sword ; but in England that is never 
done; they never use a sword or stick against those who are not similarly 
armed ; and if any unlucky foreigner (for it would never come into the 
mind of an Englishman) should strike with the sword any one who had 
not got one, it is certain that in an instant a hundred persons would 
fall upon him, and perhaps beat him so that he would never recover. 



494 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



Wrestling is also one of the diversions of the English, especially in the 
northern provinces. Ringing the bells is one of their great pleasures, 
especially in the country ; there is a way of doing it, but their peal is 
quite different from those of Holland and the Low Countries. In winter 
football is a useful and charming exercise ; it is a ball of leather, as 
large as a man's head, and filled with wind ; it is tossed with the feet 
in the streets. To expose a cock in a place, and kill it at a distance 
of forty or fifty paces with a stick, is also a very diverting thing ; but 
this pleasure only belongs to a certain season. This also is the case 
with the dances of the milkwomen, with the throwing at one another of 
tennis-balls by girls, and with divers other little exercises." Such was 
the rude character of the amusement of all classes of our population 
during the seventeenth century. 

The ladies still had their household pets, though they varied some- 
times in their character, which perhaps arose in some measure from 
the circumstance that the discovery of or increased communication 
with distant countries, brought the knowledge of animals and birds 
which were not so well known before. Thus, in the sixteenth century, 
monkeys appear to have been much in fashion as domestic favourites, 
and we not unfrequently find them in prints in attendance upon ladies. 
Since the discovery of the West Indies, and the voyages of the Portu- 
guese to the coast of Africa, parrots had become much more common 
than formerly. In pictures of the period of 
which we are speaking, we often find these, as 
well as smaller domestic birds, in cages of various 
forms. In our cut No. 324, taken from Whit- 
ney's " Emblems " (printed in 1585), we have a 
parrot in its cage, and a small bird (perhaps 
meant for a canary), the latter of which is draw- 
No. 3,4-Birds and Birdcage. ™g up its water to drink in a manner which 
has been practised in modern times, and sup- 
posed to be a novelty. It is very unsafe indeed to assume that any 
ingenious contrivances of this kind are modern, for we often meet with 
them unexpectedly at a comparatively early date. 

With the multiplicity of new fashions in dress now introduced, the 
work of the toilette became much greater and more varied, and many 




HOTHOUSES. 



495 



customs were introduced from France, from Italy, and from the East. 
Among customs derived from the latter quarter, was the introduction of 
the eastern hot and sweating baths, which became for a considerable 
period common in England. They were usually known by the plain 
English name of hothouses, but their eastern origin was also sometimes 
indicated by the preservation of their Persian name of hummums. This 
name is still retained in London by the two modern hotels which occupy 
the sites of establishments of this description in Covent Garden. Sweat- 
ing in hothouses is spoken of by Ben Jonson; and a character in the old 
play of "The Puritan," speaking of a laborious undertaking, says, "Marry, 
it will take me much sweat; I were better go to sixteen hothouses." They 




No. 325. — A Hothouse. 

seem to have been mostly frequented by women, and became, as in the 
East, favourite places of rendezvous for gossip and company. They were 
soon used to such an extent for illicit intrigues, that the name of a hot- 
house or bagnio became equivalent to that of a brothel; and this circum- 
stance probably led eventually to their disuse. A very rare and curious 
broadside woodcut of the reign of James I., entitled "Tittle-tattle, or the 
Several Branches of Gossiping," which in different compartments repre- 
sents pictorially the way in which the women of that age idled away their 
time, gives in one part a sketch of the interior of a hothouse, which is 
copied in our cut No. 325. In one division of the hothouse the ladies 
are bathing in tubs, while they are indulging themselves with an abun- 



496 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 

dance of very substantial dainties ; in the other, they appear to be still 
more busily engaged in gossip. The whole broadside is a singularly 
interesting illustration of contemporary manners. A copy of it will be 
found in the print-room of the British Museum ; and it may be remarked 
(which I think has not been observed before), that it is copied from a 
large French etching of about the same period, a copy of which is in the 
print department of the National Library in Paris. 

This is sufficient to show the close resemblance at this time between 
manners in France and in England. In the former country, the resort 
of women in company to the hot-baths is not unfrequently alluded to, 
and their behaviour and conversation there are described in terms of 
satire which cannot always be transferred to our modern pages. In 
these popular satires, the bathers are sometimes chambrieres, and at 
others good bourgeoises. The picnics, which had formerly taken place 
at the tavern, were now transferred to the hot-bath, each of a party of 
bathers carrying some contribution to the feast, which they shared in 
common. Thus, in the popular piece entitled " Le Banquet des Cham- 
brieres fait aux Estuves," printed in 15 41, it is the chamber-maidens 
who go to the bath, and they begin immediately to produce their con- 
tributions, one exclaiming — 

j'ay du pore frais, 

Une andouille et quatre saulcices. 

To which a second adds,— - 

j'aye une cottelette, 

Qui le ventre quasi m'eschaulde. 
And a third, — 

Moy, un paste a sauce chaulde. 

The women are seen eating their picnic feast in one compartment of 
our cut. This practice soon passed from the servant maids of the 
bourgeoisie to their mistresses, and from the burghers' wives to ladies of 
higher condition. Our word picnic, representing the French fiiquenique, 
the origin or derivation of which word seems not to be clearly known, 
appears to have come into use at the latter end of the last century, 
when people of rank formed evening parties at which they joined in 
such picnic suppers, to which each brought his or her contribution. 



ORDINARIES. 



497 



The term is now applied almost solely to such collations in the fields 
or in the open air. 

We have already seen how, at an earlier period, men of a superior 
rank in Loudon, and probably in at least the larger country towns, lived 
much in the taverns and cooks' shops, or eating-houses. This practice 
continued, and underwent various modifications, the principle of which 
was the establishment of houses where a public table was served at 
fixed hours, at which a gentleman could take his place on payment of 
a certain sum, much in the same style as our modern tables d'hote. 
Gradually these establishments became gambling-houses, and men 
settled down after dinner to cards, dice, and other games. They were 
called ordinaries, and in the reign of Elizabeth they had become an im- 




No. 326. — Swaddling a Child. 

portant part of the social system. It was here that people went to hear 
the news of the day, or the talk of the town ; and to frequent the ordin- 
ary became gradually considered as a necessary part of the education 
of a gentleman of fashion. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
the usual price of an ordinary appears to have been two shillings ; but 
there were ordinaries at eighteen-pence, and at some fashionable ordin- 
aries the price was much higher. 

The general treatment of children, their costume, and their amuse- 
ments, remained much as formerly, and closely resembled those of France 
and Germany as they were then, and as they have existed in some 
parts even to our own days. The pernicious practice of swathing or 
swaddling the child as soon as it was born prevailed everywhere, and 



2 I 



498 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



the infant was kept in this condition until it became necessary to teach 
it the use of its limbs. The process of swaddling is shown in our cut No. 
326, taken from one of the prints by Bosse, published in 1633, which 
furnish such abundant illustration of contemporary manners. The period 
during which boys were kept in petticoats was very short, for at a very 
early age they were dressed in the same dress as grown-up people, like 
little miniature men. Our only representatives of the appearance of little 
boys in the sixteenth century are found in one or two old educational 
establishments, such as the Blue-Coat School in London. The costume 
of a child during the short transition period between his swathes and 
his breeches is represented in our cut No. 327, of a boy riding upon his 
wooden horse. It is taken from a German woodcut of the date of 

1549- 
In the sixteenth century little improvement had taken place in the 

means of locomotion, which was still 
performed generally on horseback. 
Coaches, by that name, are said to 
have been introduced into England 
only towards the middle of the six- 
teenth century. They were made in 
various forms and sizes, according to 
fashion or caprice, and, as already 
stated, towards the end of the century 
they were divided into two classes, 
known by the foreign names of coaches 
and earaches. The latter appear to have been larger and clumsier than 
the former, but to have been considered more stately j and from the 
old play of " Tu Quoque," by Green (a drama of Elizabeth's reign), we 
learn that it was considered more appropriate to the town (and probably 
to the court) while the coach was left to the country :— 

Nay, for a need, out of his easy nature, 
May' st draw him to the keeping of a coach 
For country, and carroch for London. 

Our cut No. 328, taken from a contemporary painting, represents the 
carriage of a lady of rank, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is no 




No. 327. — A Boy a-cock-horse. 



COACHES. 



499 



doubt a coach, as the caroch is spoken of as drawn by six horses. The 
latter seems soon to have gone out of use, but the coach, under different 
forms, has remained in use and retained its name to the present time. 




No. 328. — A Lady's Coach in Elizabeth's time. 

Ben Jonson, in his comedy of " The Devil is an Ass," gives us a 
great notion of the bustle attending a caroch : — 

Have with them for the great caroch, six horses, 
And the two coachmen, with my ambler bare, 
And my three women. 

Coaches of any kind, however, were evidently not in very common use 
until after the beginning of the seventeenth century. Women in general, 




No. 329. — Riding on a Pillion. 

at least those who were not skilful horsewomen, when the distance or 
any other circumstance precluded their going on foot, rode on a pillion 



500 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



or side-saddle behind a man, one of her relatives or friends, or some- 
times a servant. The preceding cut (No. 329) represents a couple 
thus mounted, the lady holding in her hand the kind of fan which was 
used at the period. From a comparison of the figure of the Anglo- 
Saxon ladies on horseback, who were evidently seated in the saddle as 
in a chair, sideways to the horse, we are led to suppose that the Anglo- 
Saxon lady's saddle, and probably the saddle for females in general 
.during the Middle Ages, was the same as that which was known in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the name of a pillion. The 
rider placed her feet usually on a narrow board, which was called in 




No. 330. — A Lady carried in her Chair. 

French the planchette. It is evident that a woman could not be very 
solidly seated in this manner, and not only did she want the command 
over the horse which would enable her to take part in any very active 
exercises, but it was considered almost necessary to place a man on a 
saddle before her. We have, accordingly, seen that, from a very early 
period, when engaged in hunting and in any sort of active riding, the 
lady used a saddle, as at present, in which she raised one leg over a 
part of the saddle-bow, made for that purpose, and placed the other 
foot in the stirrup, by which she obtained a firm seat, and a command 
over the horse. Different writers have ascribed, without any reason, 
the introduction of this mode of riding for ladies to various individuals, 
and Brantome seems to have thought that this practice was first brought 



COACHES. 



501 



into fashion by Catherine de Medicis. The cut No. 329 is taken from a 
drawing in the curious Album of Charles de Bousy, containing dates 
from 1608, to 1638, and now preserved among the Sloane Manuscripts 
(No. 3415) in the British Museum; and the same manuscript has 
also furnished us with the cut (No. 330) of a lady of rank carried 
in her chair, with her chair-bearers and attendants. Ladies, and 
especially persons suffering from illness, were often carried in horse- 
litters, and there are instances of chairs mounted somewhat like the 
one here represented, and carried by horses. The first attempt towards 
the modern gig or cabriolet appears to have been a chair fixed in a cart, 
something in the style of that represented in our cut No. 331, which in 




No. 331.— A Mediaeval Cabriolet. 



its ornamentation has a very mediaeval character, although it is given as 
from a manuscript in the National Library in Paris (No. 6808), of the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. 

The close of the period of which we are here speaking introduces us 
to one in which the manners and customs of our forefathers were less 
widely different from those of our own days ; and the history of domestic 
manners since that time, characterised less by broad outline of the 
general features in its revolutions than by a gradual succession of minute 
changes and fashions which must be traced from day to day, is less 
capable of being treated in the comprehensive style of these pages. 
Having now, therefore, brought down our sketch of the history of the 



5<32 



THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 



domestic manners of our forefathers to the middle of the seventeenth 
century, we shall here, for the reason just stated, conclude it, and 
leave to some worthier labourer, or to some future occasion, the task of 
tracing more minutely the history of domestic manners and sentiments 
during the period which followed the Middle Ages. 



INDEX 



A. 

Adulteration of food, 403. 

Ale, Welsh, 39, 44. 

Ale-house, roadside, 331, 332. 

Ale-stake, 332. 

Ale-wife, the, 347. 

Amphitheatres, Roman, in Britain, 77, 
78, 125. 

Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons, 76. 

domestic, 118. 

out-of-doors, 125 ; after-dinner, 

211, 24O. 

Animals, domestic, and pets, 252-257. 

Archery, a favourite amusement among 
the ladies, 321 ; practised generally, 
440. 

Architecture, domestic, of the Anglo- 
Normans, 95, 96. 

Axes, Anglo-Saxon, 21. 

B 

Backgammon, the game of, 235. 

Bacon, the principal flesh eaten by the 
Anglo-Saxons, 37. 

Bagpipe, 201, 202, 204. 

Ball, playing with the, 248. 

Bankers, 373. 

Banking in the Middle Ages, 276. 

Banquet, the meal, 397, 401, 403. 

Barnwell, near Cambridge, the fair of, 80. 

Bathing, the practice of, 271. 

Bear, dancing, antiquity of this exhibiton 
in England, 78, 315, 3 16. 

Bed-chambers and their furniture, 124, 
125, 268, 415, 481-485. 

Beds, 124, 270, 411-415. 

Anglo-Saxon, 59, 60 ; Anglo- 
Norman, 123. 

Bee-hives, 103. 



Beggars, 338, 339. 

Bellows, 163. 

Benches for sitting, 158. 

Beowulf, the poem of, 14, 15. 

Bever, a meal, 404. 

Beverley, the sculptured minstrels at, 

208. 
Bibblesworth, Walter de, his Vocabulary, 

61. 
Birds, tamed, different kinds of, 252, 253, 

394, 494- 
Birmingham, origin of the name, 3. 
Blood, aristocratic, belief concerning it, 

292. 
Bourgeoisie, their mode of living, 188- 

190. 
Bourne Park, near Canterbury, 21. 
Bower, the chamber, Anglo-Saxon, 22. 
Bows and arrows, 126, 127. 
Boxing, English, 493. 
Box-iron, ornamented, 453. 
Bread, Anglo-Saxon forms of, 40. 
Breakfast among the Anglo-Normans, 

106. 
Breakfasts of the Peixy family, 429. 
Buckets, Anglo-Saxon, 20. 
Buffet, 389. 

■ for the plate, 373. 

Bull-baiting, 316. 

Bur (bower), the Anglo-Saxon name of 

the chamber, 4, 12, 14, 22. 



Cabinets, 259. 

Cabriolet, origin of the, 501. 

Ca^dmon, the poet, 45. 

Caer Caradoc, the mountain, 7. 

Caldron, forms of the, 163-166. 

Candlebeam, or chandeliers, 386, 3S7. 



506 



INDEX. 



Candles, 57, 58, 120, 121, 123, 262, 263, 
264, 386. 

Candlesticks in the fifteenth century, 386 ; 
in the sixteenth century, 479. 

Cards, the game of, its history, 236-239, 
490, 491. 

Caroches, a kind of coach, 498, 499. 

Carole, the dance, 242. 

Carriages, 441, 499. 

for travelling, 86. 

Cart or car, the Anglo-Saxon, 85. 

Cats, their character, 256, 257. 

Cellarer, the office of, 155. 

Chairs, 52, 53, 107. 

Chairs and stools, their forms, 385. 

of the sixteenth century, 476, 477. 

for carrying persons, and chair- 
bearers, 500, 501. 

Chamber, the, 4, 14, 22, 25, 51, 61, 142. 

the women's room, 145. 

and its furniture and uses, in early 

English times, 257-259, 272-275, 408, 
409, 480, 481. 

manners of the, 286. 



Chambrieres, or chamber maidens, 290. 

Chandeliers, 386, 479. 

Char, the carriage, 326, 327. 

Chariot, Anglo-Saxon, 86. 

Chedder, King Edward's hunting party 
there, 81, 82. 

Cheminee (the fire-place), 96. 

Cherries, cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, 
95 ; and generally in England during 
the Middle Ages, 310, 311. 

Cherry-fairs, 310. 

Chess, the game of, 52, 119, 120, 211-228. 

Chests, 122, 138, 274-280, 480. 

Children, Anglo-Saxon, without clothing 
when young, 57 ; their treatment, 61, 
63,411. 

Chimneys, 112. 

Church Stretton, 8. 

Churning, 305. 

Cittern, the musical instrument, 202, 203. 

Clergy, Anglo-Saxon, addicted to hunt- 
ing, 81 ; corrupters of domestic man- 
ners in the Middle Ages, 294. 

Cnithad (boyhood), period of, among 
the Anglo-Saxons, 65. 

Coaches, 498. 



Coal, mineral, known to the Romans and 

Anglo-Saxons, 32, 113. 
Cock-fighting, peculiar to the English, 

492. 
Cold- Harbour, origin and meaning of the 

word, 88. 
Cook, duties of the, 38 ; origin of the 

name, 39. 
Cookery, Anglo-Norman, 104 ; early 

English, 165, 358-369- 
Cooks, among the Anglo-Normans, 99, 

100. 
Cottage, the modern English, 5. 
Courtesy, 139. 
Couch, the, 478. 

Counter, or table for writing, 456. 
Couples, guests placed in, at table, 1 75. 
Cupboards, among the Anglo-Normans, 

122, 155 ; at a later period, 190. 
Curtains, bed, 412-419. 

of chamber, 257. 

Cymbals, 206. 

Cynewulf, King, murder of, 24. 



D. 
Dais, of the hall, 172. 
Dames, game of, 220. 
Damsons, considered as delicacies, 398. 
Dances, the different descriptions of, 241, 

242. 
Dancing, among the Anglo-Saxons, 46 ; 

in the mediaeval hall, 184; at later 

times, 396, 434. 
Dancing after dinner, 241. 
Dice, the game of, 119, 229-232, 491. 
Dinner, manners of the Anglo-Saxons at, 

49. 

scenes, 34-36. 

Dinner- table, among the Anglo-Saxons, 

101 ; among the Anglo-Normans, 101, 

102. 
■ manners at, in the fifteenth cen- 
tury, 377-380; in the seventeenth 

century, 464. 
Dishes, 36. 
Dogs, value of, among the Anglo-Saxons, 

80, 81. 
Dorsers, 373. 
Draughts, the game of, 235. 



INDEX. 507 


Drawing, practised by the ladies of the 
fifteenth century, 435. 


Frog-in-the-middle, the game of, 246. 
Furniture of houses in the fifteenth cen- 


Drawing-room, 417. 

Dress, of the Anglo-Saxons at a late 


tury, 375, 376. 


period, 93 ; of the early Normans, 94. 


G. 

Gallantry, its origin, 116. 

Gallows, the Anglo-Saxon, 71. 

Gambling, 488-491. 

Games among the Anglo-Saxons, 51 ; 
among the Anglo-Normans and early 
English, 119, 210 ; later, 487. 

frolicsome, in the Middle Ages, 

243- 
Garden, the place of amusement, 241, 295. 


Dresser, or cupboard, 190, 389. 
Drinking, among the Anglo-Saxons, 41 ; 
among the Anglo-Normans, 127. 








* healths, 472, 473. 


E. 
Education, 131, 132. 


the pleasure, 295. 

Gardening, the practice of, in the Middle 
Ages, 305-3I4- 

Gardens, Anglo-Saxon, 73, 78 ; Anglo- 
Norman, in, 147; English, 436, 437. 

Garlands, love of, 300, 301, 438. 

Gentility, pride of, 292, 293. 

Gleeman, the Anglo-Saxon, 47. 


Edward the Elder, King, his hunting- 
party at Chedder, 81. 

Embroidery, among the Anglo-Saxons, 
66 ; among the English, 250. 


F. 

Fairs, origin of, 80. 
Faldestol, the fautenil, 108. 
Feast, a monastic, 378. 


Greediness in eating, 430. 

Grendel, the monster, and his mother, 15, 

16. 
Grosseteste, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, 

the author of the School Code of 


Feasting, the pageantry of, 465. 
Feasts, among the Anglo-Normans, 97. 
Female character in the fifteenth century, 

426-428. 
Feudalism, its origin, 113; state of society 

under, 115, 116. 
Feudal manners, 117, 1 1 8. 
Fiddle, the, 46. 
Fire-irons, 451-455. 
Fire-places in the house, 112. 
Fire-place in the hall, its changes, 455. 
Floor, strewed with rushes, 173, 259, 


Manners, 138. 
Guest-houses, 88. 
Guild-houses, 88. 

H. 

Hall, the, 4, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 
27, 3°> 32, 97, in, 141, 153^160, 
37o, 373. 449, 4SO- 




475- 
Ham, meaning of the word in Anglo- 


377- 
Flowers, love of, 295-301. 


Saxon, 2, 3, 4, 28. 
Hanging, the punishment of death among 

the Anglo-Saxons, 71, 356. 
Harlots, the name of a class in mediseval 


74- 


Food of the Anglo-Saxons, 37. 

Forks, unknown to the Anglo-Saxons, 39. 


society, 415. 

Harp, its use, 46, 47, 182, 183. 

Hawking, among the Anglo-Saxons, 83 ; 
at later periods, 317-321. 

Health-drinking among the Anglo-Sax- 
ons, 45. 

Hedgehogs, how cooked, 366. 


Fostering, practice of, and foster-children, 

282-284. 
Fowlers, Anglo-Saxon, 83. 
Friends, sworn, 284. 



So8 



INDEX. 



Herbergeors, 344. 

Herodias, dancing, 184, 185, 468. 

Home, origin and history of the word, 

4, 5- 

Honey, 103. 

Hoodman-blind, the game of, 243. 

Horn, for drinking, 43, 102. 

the musical instrument, 202-204. 

Horse, wooden, for children, 498. 

Horsemanship among the Anglo-Saxons, 
84, 85, 317. 

Horse-races, 329. 

Horses, in the Middle Ages, 327; dif- 
ferent breeds, 328, 329. 

Hospitality, Anglo-Saxon, 34, 74, 89. 

Anglo-Norman, 127 ; later, 339- 

344- 

Hostelers, 344.. 

Hot-cockles, the game of, 243-246. 

Hothouses, the sweating-baths, their 
character and uses, 495. 

Hours, early, kept by our ancestors, 260. 

House, the Anglo-Saxon, 22, 24, 25, 26. 

the early English, 141 ; an Anglo- 
Norman, 144 ; of the fifteenth century, 
37o, 37i, 448. 

Hrothgar, the Anglo-Saxon chieftain, 
14. 

Hummums, 494. 

Hunting, among the Anglo-Saxons, 8o, 
81. 

among the Anglo-Normans, 126. 

Hutch, or chest, kept in the chamber, 
274,275,277-279, 417,418. 



ing, the Anglo-Saxon patronymic, 3. 
Inns, Anglo-Saxon, 88. 
Ivory, in the Middle Ages, made of the 
horn of the walrus, 218. 



Jougleurs, 48, 194, 195, 198. 

K. 

Kayles, the game of, 249. 

Keys, 155. 

Kitchen, origin of the name, 39. 

< the Anglo-Norman, 99, 100. 

the mediaeval, 162. 



Knife, the Anglo-Saxon, 21, 40. 
Knife-cases, ornamental, 469. 
Knives, 374. 
Kyteler, the Lady Alice, her story, 276. 



Ladies, young, of the family, treated 

harshly, 391, 392. 
their occupations, 121, 122, 250, 

251, 252, 433, 486. 

their behaviour in company, 393. 

■ their out-door behaviour, 303, 



3°4- 



hawking and hunting, 317-322. 

their manner of riding, 322-324. 

Lady, origin of the word, 37. 

Lamps among the Anglo-Saxons, 58 ; at 

later periods, 265, 266. 
Lanterns, 121, 265. 
Larder, origin of the word, 37. 
Latin, taught to the children, 134. 
Latten, a mixed metal, 386. 
Lecheurs, 98, 117. 
Leek, the favourite vegetable in the 

Middle Ages, 305, 306. 
Libraries, 351. 

Liquors drunk by the Anglo-Saxons, 43. 
Literature, domestic, 139. 
Longmynds, the mountains, 7. 
Ludlow, the road from Shrewsbury to, 

6, 11. 
Lute, the, 203. 
Luxury of the Anglo-Saxons, 93. 

M. 
Magpie, the favourite talking bird, 252- 

255- 

Maidens, numerous in the feudal house- 
hold, 283. 

Manners, good, taught in the school, 134, 

"35- 

Manor, the, 5, 141. 

Marches of Wales, 6. 

Marriage among the Anglo-Saxons, 67 ; 

among the Anglo-Saxon priesthood, 69. 
Masques after dinner, 467. 
Mead, 43. 
Meals, daily, hours of the, 106, 261, 405, 

432, 460. 



INDEX. 509 


Meals, Anglo-Saxon, 33. 


Pavement, tessellated, 14. 


Meat, manner of cooking, among the 


Peaches, known to the Anglo-Saxons, 


Anglo-Saxons, 37, 38. 


307 ; cultivated in England during the 


Meat-pies, 405. 


Middle Ages, 308, 309. 


Mess, origin of the term, 468. 


Peacock, how served at table, 369. 


Milking, among the Anglo-Normans, 105. 


Perche, the, or frame for hanging objects, 


Millichope, ancient manor-house at, 149. 


156, 157- 


Minstrel, the, 15, 45, 47, 48, 49> *39- 


Percy family, their diet, 429. 


Minstrelsy, Anglo-Saxon, 45. 


Picnics, 444, 496. 


in thr hill t8t-t8i "'ll 


Pillions, women riding on, 499, 500. 
Pipe, the musical instrument, 204. 


Mirrors, 420, 421, 422. 


Money, reckoned by weight among the 


Pipe, double, 77, 78, 206. 


Anglo-Saxons, 91 ; mode of keeping it, 


Plate, ornamental, 467. 


91, 92. 


Poetry, 139. 


and valuable^ how kept in the 


Pottery, Anglo-Saxon, 18, 19, 20. 
Anglo-Norman, 103. 


Middle Ages, 274, 275, 276. 


Monkeys, domesticated, 255, 494. 


Priesthood, among the Anglo-Saxons, 


Monks, bons-vivants, 181. 


its character, 68. 


Morning, the time of rising among the 


Printing, art of, its origin, 238, 239. 


Anglo-Normans, 105. 


Psaltery, the musical instrument, 202, 


Mummings and masquerades at dinner, 


203. 


465- 


Pudding, love of the English for, 470. 


Music-galleries in the halls, 198, 450. 


Punishments, the Anglo-Saxon, 73. 


Musical Instruments, 45, 46, 122, 123, 


of the Middle '\ce f " or "'— 7 ^7 




200-209. 


Puppet-Show of the fourteenth century, 


Musicians, among the Anglo-Saxons, 47. 


440. 

R. 

Ragman, the game of, 247. 


N. 
Nancy, the tapestry there, 397-403. 


Nef, the, on the dinner- table, 180. 


Ragman's Roll, 248. 


Nightingales, domesticated, and their 


Rere-banquet, 471. 


food, 395. 


Rere-supper, 403, 404. 


Normans, their splendid mansions, 93, 


Ribalds, or lechers, a class of mediseval 


95. 


society, 97, 98, 116, 195. 


Norton Camp, II, 12. 


Riding, the clergy great riders, 324 ; 




costume of the knight when riding, 


O. 


3 2 5- 


Ordinaries, their history, 497. 


Ring, uses of the, in the Middle Ages, 


Organs, among the Anglo-Normans, 123. 


279-282. 


Outlawe, William, the banker, his story, 


Roads, Roman, 14. 


276. 


insecurity of the, 90, 337, 442. 


P. 


Robbers, 337, 338. 


Painting, as a domestic accomplish- 


Roy-qui-ne-ment, game of, 246. 
Ruelle, of the bed, 412. 


ment, 435, 436. 
Parlour, the, 154, 370, 380-382, 389, 


Rutebeuf, the trouvere, 199, 200. 


391- • 




furniture of tlie J.7Q 


S. 


domestic dmu^cment^ of trie 11^ 


Salt, regarded with superstitious feelings, 
373. 464- 


396. 


Parrots, 252. 


Salt-cellar, the, 373. 



5io 



INDEX. 



Scissors, 122. 

Scholars, begging, 350. 

Scholarship, of what it consisted, 350. 

Schools. Norman, 130-132 ; of later 

times, 350. 

domestic, 133. 

Scribe, the, 446. 

Seats, among the Anglo-Normans, 107, 

108, 109. 
Servants, cruel treatment of, by the 

Anglo-Saxon ladies, 69, 70. 
Service, young gentlemen going to seek, 

282. 
Serving-men, character of, in the fifteenth 

century, 431. 
Sester, the Anglo-Saxon, 45. 
Settle, the, 109, 409. 
Shalm, the musical instrument, 202, 203. 
Shears, 122. 
Side-saddles used by women, 84, 129, 

3 22 > 3 2 3- 
Snuffers, Anglo-Saxon, 58. 
Social distinctions, origin of, 424. 
Soler, the upper room of a house, 24, 96, 

146-149. 
Spectacles, use of, 446. 
Spence, the room so called, 153. 
Spinster, origin of the word, 252. 
Spits, 35. 
Squirrels, domesticated, and kept in cages, 

394. 396. 

cooked for the table, 366. 

Stans Puer ad Mensam, the Latin treatise 

on domestic manners, 135. 
Stocks, the punishment of, 130, 353, 354. 
Stokesay, the ancient manor house of, 8, 

9,10, 11,95. 
Stones, precious, their various " virtues," 

281-283. 
Street, origin of the word, 8. 
Stretton, origin of the name, 8. 
Subtilty, an ornamental device at table, 

366. 
Supernaculum, explanation of the term, 

472. 
Supper, provisions and manners at, 259, 

404,406. 
Sutton, in Herefordshire, 12. 
Swaddling of children, 62, 62, 65, 497, 



Sweetmeats, use of, 471. 
Swine, how bred by the Anglo-Saxons, 
82. 

T. 

Table of the Anglo-Saxon chamber, 576. 

of the hall, 33. 

dormant, the, 159. 

Tables of different kinds, 458. 

the game of, 120, 232. 

Tabor, the musical instrument, 200, 209. 

Tambourine, the, 205. 

Tapestry of the Hall, 31. 

of the walls, 382, 383, 478. 

Taverns, 128, 346-348, 443, 444- 

among the Anglo-Saxons, 89. 

Theatres, Roman, in Britain, 77. 

Timber, the material of which the Anglo- 
Saxon houses were built, 27. 

Toilette of the ladies, 272, 294. 

Toll collectors, 91. 

Ton, tun, origin of this termination in 
names, 8, 12, 28. 

Top, whipping, 249. 

Town, Anglo-Saxon, 79. 

Travelling among the Anglo-Saxons, 90 ; 
among the Anglo-Normans, 128, 129; 
at a later period, 330-348, 442. 

Trenchers, meaning of the word, 1 76. 

Trouveres, French, 194. 

Truckle-bed, 415, 416. 

Tumbler, the drinking-cup, origin of the 
name, 17. 

U. V. 

Umbrellas, among the Anglo-Saxons, 

87, 88. 
Uriconium, the Roman city, 7. 
Ushers of the hall, 97. 
Villains, their position, 1 14. 
Vineyards in England, 44. 
Visitor, reception of a, 160. 

W. 

Waggon, or Waen, the Anglo-Saxon, 85. 

Waghe, or wall, 23. 

Wake, the Anglo-Saxon, 80. 

Wall, the Anglo-Saxon, 22. 

Watchmen in the Anglo-Saxon houses, 25 

Wealtheow, the Anglo-Saxon queen, 15. 

Wells, 99, 371. 



INDEX. 5 1 1 


Welsh princes, their tribute to King 

Athelstan, 80. 
Whalebone in England in the Middle 

Ages, 119. 
Whips, Anglo-Saxon, 86. 
Windows, Anglo-Norman, 196 ; early 

English, 153. 
Wine, among the Anglo-Saxons, 44 ; 

among the Anglo-Normans, 103. 
Women, Anglo-Saxon, their household 

duties and character, 65 ; their cruelty 

to their servants, 69, "jo. 
their employments, 66, 121, 122. 


Women, the physicians in the Middle 

Ages, 291, 292. 
riding on a pillion, 499. 




496. 


to them, 288. 
Wrecinsetas, the people, 7. 
Wrekin, the Shropshire mountain, 7. 
Writing, implements of, 109, 130, 279, 

35i. 352. 
Wroxeter, 7. 



THE END, 



1-RINTED BY BALLAKTYNE AND COMPANY 
EDINBURGH AND LONDON 








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